The Martians
by JPAnderson
Summary: What if Lewis found Mark in the storm?
1. Chapter 1

**The Martians.**

 **This is a one shot, I'm still publishing the other Mars story, but came up with this idea and it was nagging me to write it. Totally unconnected to my other story. As usual, all characters are the property of Weir. (Except Tim the waiter, I totally made him up) This is a not for profit exercise. Review please!**

Melissa Lewis would never go into space again. Even if she survived, NASA would wash her out of the program for not follow the evacuation protocol. That she did follow it for the crew, but not for herself, would not matter. That said it really didn't matter anyway. There was almost no chance she would survive.

She reviewed the events in her mind. The storm hit and soon was at emergency evac/abort levels. On the way to the MAV, Mark was hit by debris. His life signs were gone. He was dead as far as the best systems ever designed knew. She gave Rick the order to launch if the MAV tipped further, and ordered the rest of the crew to abandon the search, but if Mark was dead, she had to know. All the crew was important to her, but Mark was special. If she wasn't married she would have never allowed Mark on the crew. As it was, she had been able to maintain a professional relationship and her attraction to him was never exhibited. There was nothing wrong with being attracted to someone, be it intellect, chemistry or just good looks, that was part of being human. How people acted on it and kept their emotions in check is what mattered. She didn't keep her emotions in check. She kept looking.

The MAV tipped, Rick followed his orders, but only after she gave them again. The blast from the first stage engines knocked her over, but the light from them illuminated the area around her and she saw Mark. The heat dissipated enough so that she wasn't fried by rocket exhaust, and she crawled to him.

A piece of metal had pierced the side of his suit and destroyed his comm link. Maybe he was alive. With a solid jerk she ripped the metal from him then quickly applied her patch kit to the hole. On earth they had practiced rescue techniques for fallen astronauts and against the wind she dragged Mark back to the hab. They had left the door to the airlock open, there had been no reason to close it, and once in she pressurized and dragged him the rest of the way into the Hab. There she went to work on stripping his suit from him. His stomach was covered with blood and she cut his thermal suit from him. Finding the wound she irrigated it, stapled it shut, hit it with instant glue to further seal it, then slapped a bandage on it. He was breathing and didn't appear to otherwise be injured.

Next, she got on the comm to notify NASA and the Hermes of their condition. The storm raged and she was exhausted. There was no reply. It took a moment to remember that it was an antenna dish that took out Mark, and she knew then what the problem was. At once she wanted to cry, but she didn't. She still had a crewman to save, and needed to get a plan to survive. A check of the time between Mark's failed comm link and the current time showed a passage of about thirty five minutes. With luck the MAV had not reached Hermes. She suited up again, and stepped back out into the storm.

"Hermes this is HAB, copy?"

"Hermes this is HAB, copy?"

"Commander? HAB this is MAV, copy?"

"Copy MAV, Lewis here. Status?"

"HAB, Commander, our launch angle was off due to the storm but we made low orbit. Am bringing the Hermes to altitude to dock. Four crew aboard. All well. Your status HAB? Signal is weak, high noise, read you 2 by 2 at best."

"Copy MAV. I'm outside on my headset. Antenna to HAB comm destroyed. I am alive and uninjured. Watney alive. Injured by stabbing wound to side by debris. Bleeding stopped, wound sealed and bandaged. Significant blood loss. Watney unconscious. Storm is not abating. Will contact in 10 hours. Get them to the Hermes Rick, you're in charge. Inventory food and supplies for a supply drop with OEP, Have Johannson get us a comm work around. HAB out, I'm going in."

"Copy HAB. Good to know you guys made it. We'll get you home."

Lewis returned to the HAB and went through the airlock again. It sounded like the storm would break the place apart, but it held. As she came in and removed her EVA, Mark was stirring.

"Mark, can you hear me?" She asked as she knelt beside him.

"Commander, the storm, did we get out?"

"No, but the crew did. The HAB's dish is gone but I raised them on my headset. They made a low trajectory orbit but Rick thinks he can get them to dock. I don't want to risk going out again in the storm so we will contact again in ten hours. Right now the headsets are the only way we have to communicate with them, but now they will be listening. If they had made it to the Hermes, well, they wouldn't have their EVA gear on and wouldn't know to tune it. So, well that is one thing that went right."

Mark tried to sit up but grimaced in pain.

"Woah, stay down, you need to rest, you lost a lot of blood. Can I get you anything?"

"Water. Lortab. Something to pee in."

Lewis stifled a laugh and returned with all that was requested and a local anesthesia from the med kit. While he drank from one liter bottle, she injected around his wound. The bleeding had stopped thanks to the staples and glue so she rinsed it with peroxide and changed the bandage while there. Then she gave Mark another liter bottle, this one labeled "R. Martinez" for him to relieve himself in.

"Remind me to give that back to Rick when we get out of here. Speaking of which, how are we getting home?"

"Mark, I have no idea. We are off script now. There is no contingency for this as far as I know, other than.."

"Shooting up enough morphine before we starve?"

"We're a long way from that. Hermes can load up the orbital escape pod and Rick can remote it to us. That should buy us another three to four hundred days, and if everyone rations, maybe four fifty to five hundred. Plus we have about a hundred and fifty days food here already. So that is six hundred and fifty days, at full rations, maybe eight hundred at three quarter."

"The Ares IV won't get here for four years at least, that is 1400 to 1500 days. They will find us dead."

"No, they won't. The Ares IV presupplies will start launching in six months or so and get here in fourteen. They can land a resupply here. We'll make it Mark. We're not going down without a fight. But we are going to have to take care of the HAB, the reclaimator, oxygenator and CO2 scrubber in the mean time."

"Okay. I'm in. I didn't feel like dying anyway." Mark smiled as the drugs kicked in and he drifted off to sleep.

Mars had little atmosphere so the storm was completely unpredictable. It should have been impossible to occur. Wind storms on Earth were areas of low pressure, but all of Mars had low pressure. This weather mass had enough air in it to move dirt and cause damage and logically had a higher air pressure than the rest of the planet. As a result, it dissipated quickly as the atmosphere sought to level out. A few hours after it had began the wind died down and the HAB stopped feeling like it was being blown apart. Only then could Commander Lewis get some sleep.

On Earth all of NASA was having a nightmare. Houston knew of the evacuation and the MAV launch but the MAV's communications to Earth were limited until they overheard the conversation with Lewis via the link to the MAV in Hermes, and they only heard the astronauts on the MAV speaking. Efforts to contact the MAV directly had failed, but Mission Control finally switched over the comm in Hermes to repeat messages to the MAV. The MAV launch had occurred just as the Hermes was on the "dark side" of Mars, away from Earth and ground communications would normally route through the HAB and then to Earth via a satellite, but of course the HAB could not broadcast. That the MAV could not communicate directly via the Hermes until it got there was an oversight. It too was to broadcast to the HAB and be rerouted to Houston.

It took Rick almost a day to link up the Hermes and the MAV and once docked Beth went to work re-engineering the communication systems to allow the Hermes to communicate on the headset channel and to establish communications with Houston, now thirteen light minutes away. In that time they spoke with the commander twice, getting updates on Mark, who looked to survive his injury. The first message to Houston was from Rick as acting commander.

"Houston be advised, Hermes Actual. Emergency abort evacuation has occurred. Watney injured. Commander Lewis rescued Watney and returned to the HAB. Launch occurred on Lewis command due to MAV tipping in wind. Lewis and Watney now stranded. Martinez is acting commander at present and speaking. Lewis uninjured. Watney has blood loss and non lethal wound to side. He was unconscious and bio monitor damaged. Lewis ordered all to MAV while she searched and set critical angle. Once reached MAV launched on her verbal command. Low orbit obtained. Hermes brought to MAV, now docked. Four astronauts aboard. Lewis requests resupply via planetary escape pod, rigging for descent now. Will provide approximately five hundred days rations in addition to that on sight now. Can supply more at your command if resupply to Hermes in route is possible. There is currently no known way for Lewis and Watney to leave surface prior to Ares IV. Await reply and instructions. Hermes will continue in orbit until resupply plan developed and executed. Return launch window gives us twenty days to develop. Hermes actual, over."

"It will be twenty six minutes before we hear anything, and longer before we hear anything useful. Have you got the commander yet?" Rick asked Beth.

"Its almost time. About ten more minutes until our next appointment."

"K, keep me posted."

"Rick?"

"Yes Beth?"

"You're going to do fine. We're all behind you. Understand?"

"Thanks Beth. I just wish.."

"I know. Right now wishes don't matter. The crew will follow you. Its going to be alright. Its Mars against Lewis and Watney. I wouldn't bet on Mars, would you?"

"No. No I wouldn't."

"Hermes MAV, this is HAB, Lewis, do you copy Rick?"

"She's early. Open the link to Houston and copy them in." Rick said, before opening the channel to the commander.

"HAB this is Hermes Actual. We read you five by five commander. We have a bit more power now, currently on the Hermes and conducting supply inventory. Copy?"

"Copy Hermes Actual. Read you three by four. You're clear enough. Thanks for getting them out Rick. Mark is healing nicely and is moving about the HAB now. I would put him on but there is some pain and his demeanor is grumpy and his language inventive. Spirits here are much better now that we know you're safe though. Any word from Houston? Over."

"I wish we could have waited Commander, you know that. We just sent Houston our first message from Hermes, waiting reply now. You are currently ghosted to them so watch your language. How are conditions there? Over."

"I gave the order Rick, you did your job and followed it. Get the crew home safe and we're happy. HAB is safe and undamaged. Antenna lost at present, judging from it's post it is probably not repairable. Rover Two is not damaged but One seems a complete loss. Have cleaned solar array of dust and power at one hundred percent. Life systems undamaged. Mark requests in the resupply you send his data stick and directions for rigging a new antenna for main comm system. NASA, if you can hear me, please provide instructions there. Also he requests his seeds, mister and other materials for the research he was to do on the way home. Should be in a box with his name on it in the lab. Also any vinegar or acetic acid. He says there is a gallon of vinegar in the mess, but I've never seen it. He says he wants to try to garden with Martian soil on Mars in the HAB since we're going to be here anyway. Once comm and any other repairs are made we will continue with the other planned research. It looks like we will have time. Over."

"Copy that. Tell Mark we should have plenty of room for that. I'm not sure where he will plant a garden though. Over." Rick said with a laugh.

"He claims the HAB, and says he has figured out a way to hydrate the soil. I'm not sure I want the details of that though. Food shortage you know about. Water is fine so long as the reclaimator works and Mark should be able to keep it going. Send down all the EVA suit lithium cartridges you can. Will wait for Houston reply."

Over the next several days NASA took the basic ideas that Lewis had come up with and developed a long term rescue plan. Basically everyone would ration food, Hermes at about 80% and Mars Station as it was now called, at about 75%. The next pre supply to Mars would be a resupply to Lewis and Watney, and more would be shuttled out to Hermes as they began their slow down to Earth. This would stretch things to allow Mars Station to survive until Ares IV rescued them, probably with a MAV modified to travel overland. Mark suggested that if the resupply sent hydrazine they could use the captured CO2 to make fuel in the MAV lander that remained after the launch, making it possible for the Ares IV MAV to simply siphon fuel already waiting for it. They would only need to bring a hose with the proper fittings and that should be easy enough to do. There was concern about landing a volatile substance along with the other supplies, but it was figured that a separate lander could carry the hydrazine during the resupply and this seemed like a reasonable idea. It turned out that it actually worked.

A month later Hermes was on its way, the resupply pod from Hermes had been expertly landed by Rick about two kilometers from the Hab, and a make shift antenna adorned the MDV that was still stationed a hundred meters or so away. Also Mark was using the hydrazine and LOX to make water in the now plastic lined work area of Rover 1, which had otherwise been wrecked by the storm. A small electrical spark ran through a capacitor attached to its battery, providing the necessary spark every few seconds as an IV rig wrapped in insulating material made of spare Hab canvas and duct tape slowly dripped LOX onto a pan of hydrazine.

"Mark, if you blow up the work area on rover one, do not ask me about doing this on two, or anywhere else" was Lewis's only instructions. While Mark worked on making water from LOX and hydrazine, Missy would collect more samples of dirt, rock, and air particulates and catalog them. Protocol was for astronauts to always work in pairs but that wasn't possible when there were just two and they were on different projects, but they always stayed within sight of each other and chatted back and forth across the comm system. Mark didn't mind working with the commander outside in EVA suits, but in the HAB he found her presence distracting. She was the same age as him, and just insanely hot. Plus she had a wonderful personality and wasn't stupid. He could talk to her about anything and was growing closer to her with each day. Still, to act on the attraction and feelings he had for her would ruin the next four years of his life with awkwardness. So he avoided seeing her in her nearly skin tight indoor work uniforms and found it easier to deal with her in an EVA. At least her butt didn't demand his attention that way. Truthfully, he felt like he was the luckiest guy on the planet because if he had to be stranded, he was stranded with Missy. Every time he thought this it reminded him that he was the only guy on the planet, so he expanded it to the solar system. "Whatever" he thought.

Every hour or so Mark shut off the drip by closing the tank valve and once the small explosions stopped, turned off the power to the spark. After a few minutes the interior of the work area was well below freezing and the water in the air condensed into ice which he collected into a sealed container and started the process over. The container was essentially a high end cooler that held thirty liters and was made for soil and rock samples. It was sealed to keep dust from escaping, but it also kept the ice from sublimating into the low pressure atmosphere. He was filling it about every two trips, and in a week had enough water to begin bringing dirt in.

The dirt was first treated in the work area with a mixture that was mostly water with a capful or two of vinegar. When it touched the soil the perchlorate reacted with the acetic acid to produce nitrogen, nitrous oxide in trace amounts, water, magnesium and chlorine gas. This last would have been a problem of course but it was why he was treating it before he brought it into the Hab. Since he was in an EVA suit it didn't effect him, and once released into the vacuum he was working in, he could just open the work area air lock and vent it into space. Then the now treated soil could be brought in and even in Mars gravity it weighed a lot.

Mark had studied the previous mission's findings on the soil and knew that if he just dragged in soil and let the Hab heat it, they would both be freaking killed by chlorine gas. This was pretty much known since the soil was first sampled by Phoenix Lander decades before. Why Rick thought he would just bring dirt into the air he and Lewis were breathing without removing most of it first was beyond him. Didn't anyone read about the dirt on this toxic planet other than the botanist?

Lewis and Watney enjoyed working together and enjoyed each other's company. Lewis became very informal in the command structure as there were just the two of them and they had plenty of time to get the work done. Each day they had to give updates to Houston as to their condition, what they had eaten, water supply and a myriad of other things and compiling those reports took too much time. Lewis began delegating some of it to Mark, but then it served to take up too much of two people's time, so she began sending the very basics every day with a more detailed report every three. Down load times were horribly slow but when not communicating messages back and forth with Houston and Hermes, they used it to load entertainment. Every other day became movie night and of course they had the material on their data sticks to share.

That wasn't useful as Mark's was full of metal, punk and techno thrillers, while Missy's was full of disco, seventies tv and romcoms. Still out of boredom they shared and expanded their individual tastes. Mark had rearranged the cots so they had something of a sofa in front of the main screen they used to view things on and it was during one of those occasions, about a month after the Hermes departed, with dirt covering most of the floor that Mark asked.

"Are you doing more samples tomorrow?"

"Probably for the morning, why? Are you going to be in Rover One again?"

"No, I'm going to be seeding the soil with night soil and planting seeds. It might get smelly in here. For a few days. Sorry."

"Uh, what is night soil and why will it get smelly?"

"Uh, poop. With bacteria from Earth and some dirt from Earth. The soil needs the poop for nutrients and the bacteria to break it down so the plants can use it."

"You're spreading shit all over the Hab Mark? I don't remember approving that."

"The garden won't grow without it. The smell should die down once its mixed in the soil."

"Oh, okay, uh"

"I hope."

"You hope?"

"Well, interplanetary farming is a new and exciting field of study. There is bound to be some trial and error." Mark grinned.

"You owe me Mark."

"Already do, you saved my life, remember?"

"That was my job. Filling my living space with excrement and bacteria is above and beyond the call of duty."

"Buy you a beer when we get home?"

"Not enough. You have to take me dancing too."

"Your music or mine?"

"Mine. Your's sucks."

Missy spent most of the next day collecting samples while Mark mixed the soil and planted. The odor was horrible and the oxygenator worked overtime to separate out all the new chemicals it was exposed to. By the time Missy returned it had died down to just below vomitus levels. Mark was just finishing up his weekly video conference with his parents over the private channel that was discretely monitored and never recorded when Missy returned. He helped her carry the sample containers in, although most were simply stacked outside the airlock, then she unsuited and when the air hit her she nearly threw up.

"Jesus Watney! What the fuck have you done?"

"Its better than it was, trust me. I over did the watering of the soil and once it dries back up the odor should die down. And soon we will have fresh vegetables."

"Remind me to recommend that in future missions the botanist be located in a separate Hab. Preferably on Phobos. Or Saturn."

Missy got cleaned up and then sat down for her weekly meeting with her husband Bob. Mark went to his bunk and closed the curtain to give them some privacy. While he waited for them to finish talking, or whatever they did, he read.

Fifteen minutes later he heard Commander Lewis crying and went to check on her.

She was just across the main room, on the other side of the garden, her face down on the desk weeping in front of the small comm screen was used for messaging. The screen showed the NASA logo and message number which indicated that the message session was over, and she had turned the camera off.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Mark asked as he knelt beside the chair she was seated in.

For a minute or so Missy just cried, then looked up, her face covered in tears, and gasped "Bob wants a divorce. He says five years isn't what he signed up for." Missy gasped then threw her arms around Mark and cried on his shoulder.

Mark had no idea what to say. He had never really liked Bob but figured the Commander must have so it was none of his business. That he had hurt her so badly made him really hate his guts, but he couldn't really say that either. Anything he could think of to say was just wrong, so for once he stayed quiet and just let Melissa Lewis cry.

"I need to lay down." Missy finally gasped.

"It's time to knock off for the day anyway, you want me to get dinner?"

"Not hungry. Besides, I would just throw up."

"Hey, its going to be okay. You're Melissa Lewis, you can survive anything."

"No Mark, the smell in here is what would make me throw up. But you're sweet. Thanks. I just need to lay down and cry myself to sleep. I... We'll talk later." Lewis said as she got up and went to her bunk.

As she closed the privacy screen the comm beeped.

"Waiting for daily report." Houston said.

"Plants planted. Dirt dug. We're fine. Bad day. Don't ask." Mark typed as the only report for the day, instead of the nearly three pages of data that was protocol.

Nearly a half hour later, as Mark read a Clancy novel and ate his evening rations the comm beeped again.

"Copy that. Understood. We may have more info on relief plan tomorrow. Report in AM your time as normal. Houston."

Mark went to his bunk, worried about his friend and commander, and knowing there wasn't a damn thing he could do. He tried to sleep but only tossed and turned. The night was silent except for the circulation fans and Melissa's weeping.

"Mark?" He heard whispered when he finally nodded off.

"Hmrumph" He replied, then remembered that he could only speak English, "Yes Commander?"

"I... I'm sorry to disturb you, I know you must be exhausted, but can I come in? I, uh... I need a favor."

"Sure, anything."

Missy slid back the privacy screen and Mark could see she was a wreck. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face showed her emotional exhaustion. On the other hand she was practically naked, wearing only the standard underwear for women on a NASA mission that looked like a sports bra on top and tight running shorts on the bottom. They were not supposed to be sexy, but basically anything on Missy Lewis was in Mark's eyes. In one hand she had a pillow and in the other the standard sleeping bag that everyone slept in unzipped like a comforter.

"I, don't want...l don't want things to be awkward but I could really use a friend right now. I really don't want to be alone, can I sleep with you?"

"Absolutely."

"I... I'm not,.. I don't want to have sex or anything, will you hold me though? I really just... I should leave you alone, I'm sorry." And with that she broke down in tears again.

"Hey, sure, I understand come on. I totally get it. Come here. Please."

Missy gave in to her original thoughts and crawled in bed, but lay on her side facing away from Mark. She pulled the bag over her, as did Mark, and he laid his over her. Mark lay one arm across her midsection and another under her neck and slid close to her.

"We've been together since my last year at the academy, all through my service and Caltech. He.. he was always supportive until... When I got accepted to asscan, we did an egg harvest. When I got back we were going to do in vitro and have kids because... well it doesn't matter. By the time I get back no one will want to have kids with me."

"Bullshit. You're a warm, wonderful person. Any guy would be lucky to share life with you. Stop that, stop it right now, there is a whole planet of people who want you back. Stop letting him make you feel bad."

"You're sweet. You know, of all the guys on the mission, you were the only one Bob hated."

"Really? Why?"

"Oh... geez I should think before I talk."

"You don't have to tell me, its okay... sort of unexpected, I mean, what did I ever do to Bob?"

"Well, I don't want to make things awkward so maybe I should keep that to myse..."

"We're in bed, in a celibate relationship, almost naked, fifty four million miles from home and the only people on the whole planet. Exactly how could it get any weirder Commander?"

"Uh, by me telling you that you're the exact sort of man I'm attracted to. Is that weird enough for you? And don't call me 'commander' anymore. I'm Missy."

"Uh. You too."

"I don't call myself 'commander'."

"No, I mean, you're the exact sort of woman I'm attracted to. Smart, confident, dry sense of humor, gorgeous. It's a rare combination."

"You mean that?" Missy asked as she rolled on her back and looked toward him."

"Yes."

"Okay, I was wrong before. This is awkward." She said as she faced him and they kissed.


	2. Chapter 2

The Martians

Chapter II

 **Okay so while I was working on a series of epilogue chapters for YAMAMA, I kept getting ideas about how to extend this story. Phase One of the operation is over, the original second chapter, a stand alone story itself, is now removed to it's own story. Phase two is beginning to post what I have written to continue this one even before I know how it ends. I am far enough along so that when I write a new chapter I will post one I already have written here. Any ideas you have are welcome. As you read you will see a lot of stuff I liked from other Martian stories and have included as a homage to those that wrote them. Or its blatant in your face plagiarism. It doesn't matter, you don't own The Martian anymore than I do. Accept it for the compliment it is.**

 **Finally, please review and comment. Please. I need gratification.**

The beeping from the comm system woke them, or both Commander Lewis and Mark would have slept until mid-day. For both, it was the best night sleep either had since launch.

"Mark, is it going to get weird for us now?" Missy asked.

"Probably."

"It can't. We have to stay focused. Everything here wants to kill us. It's worse than Australia. We have to have some self- discipline." Missy replied.

"Well, yeah. How about this. During work, or anything work related, you're Commander Lewis and I'm Mark, your minion, sixth in the command tree. During down time, we're Missy and Mark. Does that work?"

Lewis thought for a moment before replying.

"That's going to have to work, I don't think we can put this horse back in the barn, can we?"

"No, I don't think we can. And I don't want to." Mark smiled.

"Me either. Okay, go answer the comm. Minion." Missy smiled.

Mark put on enough clothes to be decent in case Capcom had remotely turned the camera on at the station, then slid the privacy screen aside enough to get out, went to the desk, stepping around the garden to make it there. Fortunately, the camera was off and all that was being signaled was a personal message down load. As he started the download, he told Lewis it was safe to come out of his bunk area, and that she might want to see this as it was labeled as being from her cousin Sarah.

Mark couldn't open it. Lewis didn't actually have a cousin Sarah, but by claiming it was a personal message NASA could get around its open policy by sending it on a separately encoded private channel. It had trap door encryption and the key was the name of Lewis's favorite book, a five-digit number interspersed through out, and her pet dog in high school, all with random capitalization and punctuation. Unless a person knew all three in the right order, it was nothing but gibberish. Then you needed her thumb print. Not impossible to crack, but brute force would take years and for a personal message from a cousin, it was not worth the effort to most hackers.

It took several minutes for the download and both had coffee ready by the time it was available for reading. Both were glad that a plan had been decided upon for the most part, and excited to receive the details so that they could do the work necessary at their end.

During the night Mars time, but early morning in Houston, the work group met.

Teddy Sanders, Director of NASA, Venkat Kapoor, Director of the Ares program, Mitch Henderson, flight director, Annie, the PR director who had been through the mill since the evacuation were all there, as well as a few department heads and a Satcom technician named Mindy Park. JPL was on video conference, and several major venders, including Space X Discovery, were advised to be available if needed.

Everyone knew why Annie was there. She had pushed hard for Mark to be on Ares III. He was a great face for the mission, even NASA. Young by astronaut standards, extremely fit and damned good looking he could attract attention that others couldn't. For the same reason Annie had pushed hard for Beth Johansson, and their posters dominated dorms all over America. Especially Beth's. When launched NASA had already visited Mars twice and the public's interest was waning. Having Beth and Mark on board led to all manner of interest, mostly not scientific, but at budget time that didn't matter. Fan sites were full of romance novels about them, but Mark had never really displayed any interest in Beth as far as Annie or anyone else could tell, perhaps because, as he stated early on, that the Hermes had no privacy and his fellow astronauts had to stay focused on the mission. That he had torn through half the single women in Houston before launch convinced Annie that his reluctance to pursue a fellow crew member was not based on any orientation issues as the seedier media had suggested. Now Mark, a person Annie had made sure the public loved, was stranded on Mars and she would be involved in every detail of his rescue.

"Who are you?" Mitch asked just before the meeting got underway.

"Uh, Mindy. Mindy Park. I'm in Satcom."

"You a director or something?"

"No, red shift techni"

"Why are you here?" Mitch interrupted.

"Uh"

"Because she sighted the storm first, and confirmed that Lewis and Watney were stranded when she saw Lewis drag him in. Since then she's stayed on top of the situation without anyone asking, oh yeah, and I asked her to be here." Venkat said.

"So she's here because she saw them first? Hermes told us that."

"Hermes told us that hours later. She saw it after several other techs, including Bob, missed a picture of Missy Lewis outside in the storm talking to Hermes on her headset, then looked back through and saw Watney just after the evacuation. And as I said, she's here because I asked her to be here. Now stop being rude. You're making her feel bad. She saw the survivors first and you know the rule, 'First is forever.'" Venkat demanded.

"Uh. Sorry."

"Is okay." Mindy barely whispered.

Mindy was nervous as she was meeting well above her pay grade and thought there might be other reasons she was there. Like that her and Watney had met a week before isolation and had spent that week going through all of her nice lingerie and most of the Kama Sutra. She was actually relieved to hear that this was not knowledge to NASA, and she was there because of her skills at satellite control and analysis instead.

"This is her?" Teddy asked as he arrived last to the meeting.

"Yes, Mindy Park" Venkat replied.

"Welcome Mindy. As this is your first meeting with this group, I need to explain a few things. Nothing we discuss here is repeated outside this room until it is cleared to be spoken of. We are completely off public record and anything the press or public needs to know Annie will tell them. We need to be able to hash out ideas without every internet chat room second guessing us, that's why it is the Elrond group. Understand?"

"Like from 'The Lord of the Rings'? Mindy asked.

"Does everyone know that except me? I still hate you all." Annie nearly shouted before everyone other than Mindy laughed.

"Good work Ms. Park. You're already making friends. What is the longest gap in coverage right now?" Teddy asked.

"About 14 minutes. Once every 49 hours, the orbits just work out that way."

"You had an answer quickly. I like that. I want that down to 4 minutes. I'm putting you in charge of all systems orbiting Mars. Venkat, get with State and get us access to the ESA, Russian and Japanese satellites as well if they will give it. Ms. Park, we are all on a first name basis here, can I call you Mindy?"

"Uh, yes sir, if I may, we already have access to the ESA Seeker systems. It started a couple weeks ago." Mindy replied. There was no way she was going to call the director of NASA 'Teddy.' Ever.

"Yes, but I want you to have the control codes if possible so you can alter their orbits. I don't want any gaps in coverage, but no more than 4 minutes. Understand?"

"Yes sir" Mindy replied, although she had no idea how she was going to do that.

"Now, a week ago I asked all departments for plans to relieve Lewis and Watney. Mitch, Venkat, what do we have?"

"Two basic plans. One from JPL and one from Astrodynamics, and there are problems with both. The most obvious is retask a Ares IV presupply with enough supplies to tide them over, then have them go to Ares IV's MAV, link up with the crew and return in 4 years. I don't..."

"How would they get there? The rovers are good for 25 kilometers, and the hab wouldn't last that long. They won't have enough lithium cartridges and the water they would need would fill up the rover and two or three more, and they don't have that much anyway. "

"Right, we would have to modify them, and we don't know how yet, but they are going to need to harvest the scrubber from the hab, as well as the water reclaimator. And power both, plus they would be driving through gods know what kind of terrain. The first 600 k would be easy but after that, who knows. Of course, the samples they could gather along the way would be of more value than those of a dozen regular Ares missions. Another option for the transit is to adapt the Ares IV MDV to land, pick them up and then make a low overland flight to Ares IV. We ran that by the Ares IV crew and they were all in."

"That's because astronauts are crazy. I don't see approving either of those. What else you got?"

"Well a guy named Purnell down in Astrodynamics, on his own time, figured out a way to get Hermes back in just over 700 days. Instead of slowing down, it would continue accelerating and sling past the earth, pick up a supply on the way. We would still have to get Missy and Mark to the Ares IV MAV, and they wouldn't be able to orbit due to their speed so the MAV would have to be going fast. Faster than it is designed to go. Everyone on Hermes' demanded we accept this plan even though it meant an extra year and half on their mission and they would return to Earth with near zero argon and probably out of maneuvering fuel. By then we could shuttle more out of course."

"Astronauts are crazy, and they aren't in charge. And we still don't have a way to get them to the MAV. If that's all we got we need to work more. Come on, let's think outside the box."

"What about Orion?" Mindy quietly asked, then regretted it as everyone stared at her. She was familiar with the canceled Orion program as she had written her master's Thesis on its engineering design, shortfalls and successes, but no one had ever read it as far as she knew outside Stanford.

Orion had been the first set of missions to Mars, but none had landed. Two went and surveyed for landing sites, much like the first Apollo missions had done on the moon, but the third, which was to land, was canceled for several reasons. The craft had been launched and parked at Discovery while waiting for presupply ships when the cancellation occurred. The biggest reason was that Congress approved Hermes and the Ares program, and that the Orion capsule, although more than twice the size of a MAV, was still small for a journey of half a year or more each way for six people. It basically had a command area, storage, and a sleeping, dining, rec and exercise area, and engines in the space of about a tour bus. All of the internal habitation equipment had to be rotated before landing although it was designed to do so and actually designed pretty well. The first two missions had returned literally hating each other and it was clear that it was not the basis of a long-term exploration program. Unlike Hermes, the Orion capsules were not really reusable as it was easier to just build a new one than replace everything on the old one while it was still in space, so Orion I and II were in museums now. Orion III had been docked at Discovery X since it was launched. Sleeping. Waiting for its moment in the sun that no one ever expected.

"Well that's out of the box Mindy but..." Venkat began before Mitch interrupted him.

"Orion III is still docked at Discovery. It's been sitting there for eleven years. All it needs is fuel, food, and a crew."

"And it could land and be a more rigid habitat and launch to join up with Hermes. How fast can it get there?" Teddy asked.

Bruce Ng of JPL chimed in on the video screen. "Depends on what shape it's in. If it is as pristine as the day launched, we could boost it with a pre-supply landing sled and get there in a few months in the current launch window, I think. We'll have to get astrodynamics to look at that. Its slower than Hermes, but if we boost it with the sled and that would make it nearly as quick. Probably take two or three months to inspect, stock and refuel. And replace all the systems that need upgrading, and the stuff the guys on Discovery stripped out for one reason or another. But who is qualified to fly it?"

"You might get two months. Venkat, call up Discovery and have them start the inspection. Mitch, start shopping for your crew. Somebody has to know how to land it and fly it back up."

"The controls are pretty much the same as a MDV, and we probably still have the trainer. Can I pull from Ares IV?"

"No, Irene says they are cohesive, and we will need them for the pick up anyway. Go to Ascan for V and VI signees. What are you thinking for the six?"

"We can't do six if they are going to use it as a hab and ride back up to Hermes, I'm thinking three. A pilot, a doctor and an engineer. Two with EVA cert. They can gather samples and let someone else do the research. We need to figure out how to put that many people on Hermes too, but once it docks there is no reason to cast it off, it could be a spare area of habitation."

"That makes sense. Start shopping. Bruce let's get Boeing involved with the Orion and the Rover mods."

"Going overland?"

"We have to. The hab won't last more than 18 months will it?"

"Ares I blew up at 14" Mindy said.

"Oh, while I'm at it, Mindy welcome to the team. Mindy, I want your input moving forward and congratulations. You probably just saved two lives. Orion is a great idea, even better if it works out, and one no one else came up with. You have a future here; don't you think Mitch?"

"Yes, again, sorry. I was wrong before."

"And an ass" Annie added.

"And an ass" Mitch confirmed.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Martians**

 **Chapter III**

"Greetings, this is Venkat writing. You both have done an admirable job and are to be congratulated. Words cannot begin to explain the stress of your situation, especially yours Commander Lewis. I hope you can keep your bearings as you weather that storm. I hope you find comfort that your leadership saved your crew, and we are all working hard to bring all of you home.

I know we promised you a rescue plan and today I think we have a thumbnail of it. A lot remains to be decided and we need to see if it is all feasible. We are working on that now. In a nutshell, the Orion III craft at Discovery Station will be tasked again for the Mars transit it didn't make eleven years ago. It will carry a crew of three, including a pilot obviously, as well as a doctor and another engineer. Commander Lewis will be in command of mission until the craft returns to space and hooks up with Ares IV. Ares IV will continue its mission on Mars. In the interim we have some work for you to do.

The hab has a life expectancy of anywhere from 14 to 18 months. That is based on very little empirical data, that is simply how long it took for Ares I and II's habs to collapse. Of course that was without having a crew to maintain them, so we are not immediately concerned about your safety there, however we do want you to start alternating the air locks you use, as well as conduct regular inspections and if necessary shore up with the available spare canvas.

A rover will need to be modified to support you on an overland trip to Ares IV. Boeing and JPL engineers are working on that now, but it will need to carry sufficient panels for charging, the reclaimator and air systems from the hab. Obviously those will eat power, as will the heat and the motors, so it is going to be a long trip. You will also need to bring all the food you can, Mark I understand your farming is going well. It will be necessary to wait until after harvest to leave but I understand that will be in approximately 75 to 95 days which is well within our window. The botanists here also want you to maintain a seed crop and enough soil to restart growth on arrival at Ares IV. The hab for that location will be there by the time you arrive and can be set up by the available crew at that time. A second hab will also be sent but it will be set up by the Ares IV crew so as to not outlast its serviceable window. You and the crew of Orion will use the Orion as your living hab while there, and the actual hab for gardening and work space. We will be reinforcing all the seams, especially those around the airlocks. In any event, should it fail you will still have Orion.

We hope while modifying the Rover you will have time to complete the overall work schedule at Ares III, and that on the way to IV you will be able to collect samples at every stop. This will result in you conducting more research and sampling than the entire program was scheduled for and will be a great boon to our work.

There are a lot of details to work out, but that is the rough draft.

Keep up the great work, feel free to send all the questions you have to either Sarah or Steven, we will answer what we know and figure out what we don't. As soon as all the details are worked out and feasibility is confirmed, I will get the info to you. Hopefully we can start modifying the rover by week's end.

Talk this over and let us know your thoughts. No one knows your situation better than you. Take the day off. I know it is a lot to absorb and candidly Commander Lewis, you both need a break.

Guys, finally, we have thousands of people working to get you home safe and billions praying for you. Don't lose hope and if either of you need to talk to anyone, to help you face these difficulties, let us know. There is no dishonor in sorting through what you must be feeling while being as courageous as you both have been, and both will be. We all need to talk sometimes. You have the thoughts, love and prayers of the world behind you. Your crew mate, Beth Johanssen, is now widely quoted as saying "Its Mars vs Lewis and Watney. Don't bet on Mars." No one at home disagrees.

Venkat out."

"Well, that fucks everything up Commander" Mark said after they finished reading.

"How so?"

"What do I call you on our days off?" He grinned.

"Right. Good point. I wasn't planning on having any. Let's go casual then."

"Okay Missy."

"So, what do you think?"

"Well, I have some ideas on the rover. I need to do some measurements though. We could load up the atmospheric and water systems from the HAB, but we may need to cut a few holes and remove some stuff to make it fit. Plus, the battery from the other rover, so that will double our distance, but then there is heat."

"It has a heater."

"Yeah, but if it takes half the power to heat the thing then we only go half as far at a time."

"Good point. Snuggle?" She grinned.

"Sure, let me make sure the system cam is locked and"

"No, on the trip!"

"Right. No, it would still be too cold, plus we wouldn't be able to shower for a hundred days or more. You might not want to be around me"

"You really are smart. Okay let's worry about hygiene once we solve all the other problems."

Lewis and Watney had breakfast and talked all day, planning the project. For Missy it was a great way to take her mind off Bob's divorce demands. The night before, as she lay with Mark in his bunk, she had decided to not fight them so long as the division of property was fair. Five years really was too long to expect from a husband, and by not fighting about it she left the door open, at least in her mind, to reconciliation on their return. If they got back, which she still felt was unlikely. Meanwhile she would share her time with Mark, even though she felt horrible about it. She was after all the commander of the mission and it wasn't supposed to happen. It did, and she adored Mark and was open about those personal feelings for him in what should be a professional environment. She was a naval officer. She was a NASA commander. She was not supposed to... well. Too late. Mark was a great guy and when she woke, she felt less stress than she had in years. So maybe there was an upside to it. Another upside.

Mark, since he was a crew member, and not a commander or officer in the military, lacked that sort of professional emotional baggage and was completely cool with the situation. He had not been with anyone since that Mindy girl in Houston before he departed for launch at KSC in Florida. She had been sweet, and he could have really lasted with her he thought, but he went to space. He had always wanted to be an astronaut and had trained for it forever now it seemed. There was no choice to make, he was committed to Ares III long before he met her, but even if not, he still would have chosen space. He had already messaged his parents, just after communications were reestablished to tell them not to worry, but if he did die, to remember he died doing something important that he loved. Being stranded with a partner as amazing as Missy was just icing on the cake. Sure, their relations were against the rules, he understood that, but they were way off the rule book at this point. Mark was fuckless about that. And about pretty much everything else lately. NASA could fire him for all he cared.

All this lurked under their conversation while they worked on plans all morning. The specs for the rover's area sizes and electrical components were all available on the primary hab computer so long before NASA ever worked out the details Mark had a plan for adding the systems necessary, as well as an area to sleep, plus they would have the pop up tents, although neither felt like sleeping outside in a cold tent for a hundred days or so. The heating was the only problem as far as maximizing the distance available for travel each day and it was this they discussed over lunch.

Missy tried to think but was distracted by her thoughts regarding her pending divorce and her relationship, both professionally and personally, with Mark. Mark was distracted as he was trying to figure out if breakfast cereal with milk reconstituted from powder counted as soup.

"The hab heating system was too big and would take more power than the one in the rover already. The one in the rover sucked up half their power, but they would freeze without it. They could turn it on and off as needed, but that wouldn't help much. By allowing the interior to get cold, they would use more power to bring it back to hospitable so there really was no power savings there. They could not build a fire as they had nothing to burn and would die of smoke inhalation. A spark gap like Mark had used to make water would suck up more power than the heater. The only other source of heat on Mars was the light of the sun, and that wouldn't keep them warm. Well, that's not true, there was..."

"Penny for your thoughts?" Mark asked as Missy pondered.

"Mark! The RTG!"

"I thought you buried on Sol 1"

"I, yes, I did, but it would solve the heating problem."

"Well, yeah Missy, except there is a reason you bury those things."

"No, it's perfectly safe, unless the exterior breaks and the pellet containers break. And it would double our mileage."

"Okay, but it might kill us too."

"It's pretty solid, it traveled all the way here with no problems. And we could put it in some sort of containment vessel."

"We have a padded radiation proof box laying around here I don't know about?"

"No, but we have the coolers."

The coolers were what the crew nicknamed a variety of sample box that was basically like a cooler, with some insulation so that samples could be stored at close to their original temperature while in transit to Hermes on the MAV. This allowed them to be examined in the Hermes' lab before the temperature induced crystallization broke down. All had been unloaded when they arrived, and most were still stacked outside. A few were filled and those placed on the MAV in case of an emergency evacuation. Those five or six filled containers were the sole scientific samples thus far recovered by Ares III.

"Those won't stop the radiation. I mean, if there is a rupture."

"Well, we could cover it inside and out with hab canvas. Well, that wouldn't stop it either, too strong. Uh..."

"What about the MDV tower?"

"What about it?"

"The skin on it would work, we might have to double it."

"Yes! That shit is radiation proof as fuck!"

"Who are you and what have you done with Commander Lewis?"

"Sorry, got excited. I love problem solving. Also, Commander Lewis isn't here. Its an off day, I am Missy. And Missy gets excited and yells 'fuck' sometimes."

"I noticed."

"Shut up Watney" Mindy replied as she began to blush.

It was then that the comm system pinged with an incoming video message from "Steven", Watney's nonexistent college roommate that was used for personal messages. This one was apparently coming from the Hermes however, a place where the nonexistent Steven had never been.

"Hey Mark!" Beth grinned on the screen. She was about four light minutes away now, so response time would be slowed. Still they were close enough to do one long message with the breaks being filled with images of each other staring at the camera. Mark and Missy were always happy to get messages from their crew mates, and usually got one or two typed ones every day. This was the first on either of the private channels thought.

"I know you guys are doing great. So, why I'm calling... uh, videoing, is this. By now you have the rough draft of the plan. We, all of us, want you to know our take on it and get your support for our idea. Instead of us turning the ship over to Ares IV, we want to take the Purnell path and come get you ourselves. Houston can send us a resupply probe and you can use the Orion to join us. It will be a cost savings to NASA, and there really is no reason for Ares IV since you will be there for months and can do all the research they would be going to do anyway. They can be retasked for the Ares V landing site and so on. NASA gets a new Ares mission almost for free. What do you think? Please let NASA know you prefer to ride with us. We're a team already so there are no cohesiveness issues to deal with. And road trips with all of us together are fun."

Beth smiled at the camera and just looked cute as a button as she always did.

Before Mark could answer Missy leaned over and said "No."

"You guys get back to Earth, you've earned it. We will be fine with Ares IV." Missy continued.

"She's right. You've done your tour of duty. But thanks. I appreciate the thought, and I know Commander Lewis does too. There is no reason for you to risk coming back here. How is everything on the Hermes?"

They waited until Beth replied. Before her reply they could see her smile disappear as she received and watched their message, about eight minutes later. Then Beth's response came.

"Rick, Chris and Alex all said that is what you would say, and I'm supposed to tell you that we are going to push for it anyway whether you like it or not. You're our crew. We're coming back. You can't stop us. Commander, you can arrest us when we get there, but we aren't following an order to leave you abandoned so someone else can pick you up. Tough cookies put your big boy pants on and deal with it. We left you there, we're picking you back up. Commander, could I talk with Mark for a bit?"

"Sure, but I'm still saying no. Thanks, really, thanks. But get back to your families. Live long happy lives. That's an order."

"Okay, Missy is gone to quarters so we can talk quietly. Look I know we've talked about this before; that time in Houston before we were accepted? It's a time I will always cherish, but we have both grown. I adore you, I always will you know that. But I have to face that I might not make it out of this one. We probably shouldn't have been missioned together but I know neither of us would ever turn it down. Here's the thing, I know you no longer want me. I get that Beth. I understand. What I want to tell you is that I want you to be happy. I know you love Chris. I know Chris loves you. I think you should tell him how you feel. I'll be honest, it hurts me to say that. I don't know if it would work with you two, but as much as we have all been through together, well, you should try. Okay? If I die here, I don't want anyone regretting me. You and Chris are great together. Make it work if you can. Live happy. I want to remember us fondly until my last day. I want you to as well, and not regret anything. Okay?"

Mark stared at Beth, remember every kiss that smile had given him so many years before when they were both applied for ASCAN. He wanted to touch her now, to hug her, not romantically exactly, but just to know she was loved, and to know he was too. Mark knew there would always be a special bond between them.

Five or six minutes passed before Lewis couldn't contain herself anymore. She was across the hab when Mark sent the message, but it was a small hab. Privacy was a pretense at best. The more she thought the less she was able to control her reaction to what she overheard.

"What the fuck Watney? You and Beth?" Lewis screamed from the kitchen area fifty feet or so away. "What did you say to her?"

Mark managed to mute the mic before most of that went out.

"It was long ago, we didn't even work at NASA then, we were just applicants, we met, we clicked, stayed together there for a while, and then she went back to California and I went back to Chicago. A month later we were both accepted. And we ended it. It, well, it"

"I know about that, Beth told me a long time ago. Are you fucking stupid?"

"Well I don't think so. Remember I was an alternate for the mission. The odds were way against us ever going into space together, so we decided to not tell and"

"You are! You are stupid, aren't you? Why are you telling her to talk to Chris? Are you too stupid to know how she feels about you?"

"What? No, see, her and Chris are"

"Are just good friends. She told me how she felt about you around the time we passed proximity point and I ordered, actually ordered her to not act on it. If I had known you two hooked up in the past, I would have never picked you for the crew before launch. If I knew how emotionally vacuous you were I wouldn't even... talk to you! You're a idiot!"

"Wait… but me and you"

"Are together now. But that's still my crew up there and probably a dysfunctional one now thanks to my idiot boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?"

"Well... I'm pissed off at you right now. Don't press it."

"Hey, Beth and I have talked about this. Before the mission, you'll see, in a couple of minutes she will come back on and tell you, we're totally cool about it. No big deal."

On the screen they saw Beth watching the video Mark had sent and it looked like her face melted. Then she shouted before disconnecting the image.

"FUCK YOU MARK WATNEY! YOU'RE A PIG!"


	4. Chapter 4

The Martians

Chapter IV

Over the next couple of hours Mark got a series of messages on his private line from the rest of the crew, beginning with Alex.

"Its hard enough up here without you fucking everything up Watney. Fuck you."

Then Chris.

"What in the blue whooping fuck were you thinking?" was the nicest part of that one.

Finally, Rick. This one hurt.

"Why are you making my life more complicated? I didn't ask for any of this! I'm trying to keep my crew alive and the one thing they have in common right now is a loathing of you for hurting Beth. What the fuck dumbass? Why would you hurt Beth? What are you going to do next, shoot Bambi? Poison Ole Yeller? Have you totally lost your mind? If Lewis wasn't there with you the crew would probably just vote to leave your ass. I've got enough on my plate! STOP FUCKING UP MY WORLD ASSHOLE!"

Each got a letter back apologizing and explaining he had no idea how Beth felt, and each of those got a response back explaining that he was a moron.

Beth got a long letter, begging forgiveness. She would have gotten a video message, but she refused to accept it. Finally, Lewis made him stop as he was just making things worse.

NASA did not overhear the conversations of course but did notice an uptick in private message traffic and contacted Lewis. Without going into details, she suggested an intervention by Irene Shields, the crew's assigned psychologist, who spent the rest of the night and most of the next day trying to smooth hurt feelings and misunderstandings. The most difficult part was that of course everyone lied about the cause and blamed it on the tension of the mission. Beth's feelings for Watney, and their past together, never came up.

This is not to say Irene wasn't helpful as by the next night there were a lot of "I'm sorry" and "I understand" messages going back and forth. It was not the first-time romantic affections had screwed up the personalities of a mission, nor the first time a group of alpha type personalities had come to the rescue of a person with hurt feelings in space. The last time was Ares I, and then it was two of the three women crewmen taking up for one of the men. Without knowing the details, Irene was able to at least defuse the situation for the time being.

The day of the messages Mark and Lewis slept in their own beds. After Irene defused the situation the tension eased somewhat, but not entirely. That night, Mark lay in his bunk wondering how he had missed all these signs he was supposed to see from Beth, but just couldn't. Still, he adored her, but thought of her with fondness rather than romantic love or lust. He thought, well, he did care for her but the mission came up and they had talked... and why couldn't she have just told him how he felt when they were together so they could mutually decide what to do about it? He began to realize that although he had suppressed it, he felt much the same way. Beth was amazing.

The privacy curtain slid back, and Lewis stood there with her sleeping bag.

"Move over Mark" she said.

As he pushed himself to one side he asked, "So you're not mad at me anymore?"

"No, I'm furious. Now, spoon me. And if you ever make a comment about sleeping with all the women on Hermes, I will kill you while you sleep and make it look like an accident."

"You're kidding right?"

"Not entirely."

It was still better than sleeping alone.

A week later the cursory inspection of Orion was complete. A more intensive inspection would occur as the systems were upgraded. To be replaced were all the computer and guidance systems, but this would actually result in a net saving of space. When Orion was developed there were not the cloud of satellites to assist with approach and landing and the system necessary was already manufactured for the next upgrade of Hermes. Also replaced were the communication systems, but not only to allow for better communications with Earth, but also with all signals available from Mars, including headsets if necessary. The environmental systems were also to be replaced, again with more efficient main units and redundant systems. It would still be cramped but once done Orion III would be a truly up to date craft. The engines were all checked out and tested, and all were in perfect order. Boeing and the various system venders worked well together for once due to the urgent nature of their missions. All believed it could be ready for launch in two months, which would be a reasonably good launch window to make the trip to Mars in about seven months.

The crew was a different situation.

Mitch had quickly found a pilot and a doctor. Requests were sent both to Ascan candidates and the perspective Ares V through VIII astronauts and their alternates. Each volunteer, and there were a lot of them, went through basic medical testing, had psych evaluations and were converted on paper to resume's which were devoid of any indication of race, sex or religion. This eliminated complaints of discrimination as they were then blindly reviewed with the candidates meeting the baseline criteria being forwarded to Mitch Henderson for selection, then Venkat Kapoor and Teddy Sanders for approval.

It was decided quickly that Ares V pilot Anna Washburn would be the pilot. She had the most time in MAV and MDV simulators and the highest scores on them as well. She had a masters in astrophysics focusing on astrodynamics and her knowledge of the navigation systems and data analysis from them was second to none in the training groups. In addition, she had been a heavy aircraft pilot in the Air Force, and had time in VTOL aircraft as well. Coupled with an accident free record with near perfect academics she was an easy choice.

Med candidate 3.5-2 was also an easy pick. Of all the doctors that applied, she had the most orthopedic and nutrition experience. It was assumed that broken bones and malnutrition would be her most likely maladies to be faced. She had significant psych work in her background as well which made her medical training and experience perfect for the mission. She had prior space flight experience having been on the refurb crew prior to Ares III but had not actually met the current crew at that time. Dana Abernathy was near perfect for the job.

The engineer was the problem. Yes, all the systems save propulsion would be replaced, but all would run off a central hydrogen cell generator and back up, as well as the wiring harness itself. Even this had been upgraded with beryllium-based inductor panels and solar cells. A myriad of systems would have to be known, and the ship had been designed nearly 20 years earlier. No one had kept up knowledge of it as once Hermes came online, it was obsolete. The people who designed it were mostly in their 40's at that time and in their 60's now. Few were still employed by NASA as most had retired, and none were in shape to go into space. Ascan did not have a single candidate who knew anything at all about the ship and Mitch confirmed this by calling the training director and asking him to search for someone. That call is what finally led to the engineering candidate. They had been in Ascan six years earlier but failed the first cycle when they caught pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. On their second cycle, basically their second and last chance, they sprained an ankle with but a few days remaining in the course and were washed from the program. They could reapply, but never did. Extremely loyal to NASA and dreaming of space, this candidate stayed on in another role and were both age appropriate and reported to be in great health. Mitch knew he had found his engineer and after talking with Teddy and Venkat, they readily agreed.

"Me?" Mindy asked with alarm.

Elrond was to meet in half an hour, but Mindy had been summoned early to meet with Venkat, Mitch and Teddy. She thought she was there for the regular meeting until she was offered a spot on Orion.

"Yes. You. I've read your thesis. You are probably the world's leading expert on that ship that is physically flight worthy at the moment and we don't have time to teach someone from scratch. You basically completed Ascan six years ago, you had two days left when you sprained your ankle, so we can crash course what you need. We already have the training mock up ready. You came here to go to space. Your country needs you. Lewis and Watney need you.

"But there are other engineers more familiar with"

"With what? Hermes? The hab ground systems? We have Mark, Martinez and Johanssen for those. We need someone who is familiar with Orion. There is exactly one person in the world who is fit, of an age safe to launch and knows those systems. I've read your thesis too. You put your heart into it. I wondered how you even knew it was at Discovery, I guess I should have read your bio more. Thing is, you are it. There is no backup plan for this. It's you, or its someone who learns it in a couple weeks. How long did it take you to write your thesis?"

"Uh, about a year and a half."

"Think anyone else can do it in two weeks?"

"Uh well no I mean"

"I have to ask, are you pregnant or is there any chance you might be?"

"What?"

"You can't ask that!" Ventkat nearly shouted.

"We have to know, I'm sorry." Teddy continued.

"No. And there is no chance I am, unless it's by immaculate conception. Geez why"

"Because everyone in America would kill us if we sent a pregnant astronaut on a two year voyage."

"Oh. That makes sense."

"I'm sorry, I had to ask. If you were still in training, we would probably know already. Are you single? Married?"

"Oh, very single. No worries there."

"Any family you need to consult? Sorry but we need an answer pretty quick." Mitch finally spoke.

"I should call my parents. When I went in to Ascan, they were really proud and happy. I think they might have been happier when I washed. This, well, it might be weird, I don't know what they are going to say. But my answer is yes regardless."

"Talk to them first. I want your complete confidence in your decision. Can you let us know by tomorrow morning? You have a lot to do in just a few weeks."

"I can't get EVA certified in that time."

"No, but your pilot and doctor already are, and Lewis can certify you once there, she's listed as an EVA trainer still. You would be third back up on EVA. Probably second on piloting, but thats no big deal."

"I've never flown anything before."

"The pilot will fly, you just watch the gauges when she needs a break. The telemetry will come in from Houston once the flight is launched. The only time anyone will touch the controls is for a correction and landing-takeoff. Your pilot will be awake for that. I didn't ask, but you're going to be together for quite a while. Any problem with an all female crew?"

"No, I, uh, I think I would prefer that." Mindy replied, thinking to herself it would be fine as long as those bitches keep their claws away from her Watney.

"Oh! If this is Elrond material, can I even talk to my folks about it?" Mindy asked as she stood to leave the room to make the call in private.

"Can they keep a secret?"

"Yes, Director Sanders, I, yes. I will stress that."

"Well, they only have to keep a secret until you say yes. If you say no, it won't really matter." Venkat said.

"I think you're confused. I already said yes. I run my own life. I just think I should tell them what I dreamed of since I was in second grade is coming true." Mindy smiled and almost skipped out the door as she was so happy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for all the feed back! If anyone has any ideas for where you think this story should go, let me have them. Thanks for reading!**

The Martians

Chapter V

"She makes sense in a way though doesn't she?" Mitch said.

"We've already nixed doing the Ares III return, I'm not giving up Ares IV's mission if we can do it and relieve Lewis, Watney and Orion. I don't care how popular Beth Johannsen is or how many times she writes to us."

"Sure, but they can already have completed the mission objectives by the time Hermes arrives. If thats the case, why run the risk of landing and the return MAV launch? We can leave the MAV in place, and the hab, and the rest of the pre-supplies, and create another mission in the crater for Ares IV, up to and including a permanent station. Ares IV can switch their training to that now, Ares III can be the Uber drivers of space. We save a ton of money and get more data and research out of it. Its really a win-win." Venkat replied with Henderson nodding his agreement. Teddy did like the idea of saving a ton of money and getting a mission's worth of research almost free.

"I've considered that, but I still think that is too long to run Hermes without refurb and repair, and its too long in space without a break for the Ares III crew." Teddy replied.

"Okay but consider this. Forget the Purnell maneuver. Food is no longer an issue, and Orion should be a sturdy enough shelter even if the botany hab fails. Let's bring Hermes to dock. How long does the basic upgrade cycle take if everything is already in place? A couple of weeks? A month? It could re-launch quickly if we wanted, and it will arrive with a couple months left in the launch window at its current ETA. So instead of Purnell's five month return, we are looking at seven to nine plus the refurb time. The crew could come off, rest, see their families, regroup and then return. They would jump at the chance. And we would still get a free Ares mission, and be that much closer to a permanent settlement."

"Would two months be enough time for the crew to physically re-acclimate to gravity and recover medically from the trip?"

"No, but its better than nothing. Martinez has been staying on them about gym time and Beck reports all are in good health. It would work."

"What about an engineer for the return to Mars, add someone?"

"Well, Beck is certified for the externals already, Johannsen for pretty much everything critical inside except the reclaimator and we will be replacing that. There are a few others but nothing life critical, and if they break Watney will have something to do on the way back. Plus if there is a problem either us or Watney should be able to walk them through it, and most have a redundant back up anyway. The engineer is really on board to get everything working on site, and he will already be there. Without the extra person they get more room on the ship, and more room for the material Orion brings back. Its a good thing that ship has a sat hydrox engine or it might be too heavy by the time it gets ready to fly again."

"Our predecessors really did over engineer that thing. Run it by medical, if they are okay, and Ares III volunteers, and Boeing can get the refurb done quick enough, that would work. Sounds like we have a final plan, if all that checks out.

Mitch was tasked with asking the crew of the Hermes, and already knew what their answer would be.

A couple weeks later, across campus at the training center, the Orion III crew were in the last day of a three-day simulation. During it the trainers had thrown every problem they could think of at the crew, day and night, until all were exhausted. With just a few minutes left on the schedule, Washburn, Abernathy and Park figured their session, the last they were scheduled for, was complete. Then the yaw began. It took a bit to find the problem. While Washburn worked to stabilize the ship manually, Park sought to isolate the problem and Abernathy tried to not vomit. It only took a few minutes, but they seemed to last forever before Park isolated a fault in the secondary gyro control and took it offline to reset. The yaw continued but didn't get worse as the primary and secondary were no longer arguing with each other. Both would be needed to correct the ship's position though.

"You got it Park?" Washburn asked, herself at wits end. "This thing is flying like a hog. I'm going to try rebooting the auto."

"Wait! Give it a sec, its, 84, 85, 87, 90... 95," Park said as she started at the indicator giving the rate of rotation of the newly rebooted gyro. "Okay! Kick it, reboot the auto now."

Anna did and the ship's systems automatically corrected themselves.

The simulator stopped acting like the Wild Mouse ride at Disney and came to a stop. The lights came up and hatch popped open.

"Mindy! Why did you have me wait?" Anna Washburn asked.

"Oh. Remember when you switch from primary to secondary you have to spool up the gyro first to 100%? Same way when you are rebooting the bus. If not, it reads as a bad input and switches back automatically, and you are right back where you started. It takes a few seconds but if you don't, you're in a yaw roll for three or four minutes more while it resets again. Just a quirk in the command code."

"And if you don't do it next time you can spend hours vomiting in my simulator until somebody figures it out." The trainer's voice said over the speaker. "Okay, that's it. You're as ready as I can make you. Each of you did a fantastic job. Now, get out, get cleaned up and get over to the meeting room at Mission Control, the bosses want to meet with you and I understand they have your ride home worked out now."

"Really great job guys" Dana said as she unhooked herself from the straps holding her to her seat, "but why did I have to be here for three days? I hardly did anything."

"So you could vomit with the rest of us? It's a team building thingy." Washburn said with a smile.  
"I need a shower." Dana replied.

"I need a drink" Mindy added.

"Hit the showers. The drink will have to wait, but after the meeting with the brass, I'm buying" Washburn announced.

The crew arrived at the conference room to find Mitch Henderson and Venkat Kapoor waiting. Teddy walked in just after the crew was seated around the conference table. With a nod from Teddy, Venkat began.

"Thanks for coming. I understand you just completed training? Did it go well?"

"Yes, I think we are as ready as we can be, given the circumstances." Washburn answered for all.

"Good, good. We have never put together a mission this way but are confident now that it is the safest route to take for the mission objectives. Your primary objective is your safe return and the relief of Lewis and Watney. Your secondary objective is to complete both the Ares III and Ares IV missions. You have had no training on either of those as you are well aware, however Lewis and Watney have. You will essentially be their labor force on arrival. The command structure will be as follows; Mitch Henderson will be running your flight from here, via the already existing Ares III command structure. We don't have time to develop another. For the period of launch obviously ground control at KSC will run the show, but once you break gravity flight control at Houston will take over as is SOP for all our missions. By the time Orion launches you will be all Houston. Within Mitch's group at flight control you will have your own comm and tracking group on all shifts, red, white, and blue. They will be supported by the Ares III groups, so you should be good. Candidly once launched from Discovery there won't be a lot for them to do if all goes well.

We put some thought into your mission name and call sign. You know we like to use names from mythology, but we are running out of those. We thought about "Iris" as she was, like Hermes, one of the gods' messengers, but you're doing more than being a message carrier. For a long time we have wanted to use Nike after the goddess that Athena carried, but there are advertising concerns and Adidas would probably sue us for promoting a competitor. So, you're going to be called the Roman equivalent, 'Victoria.' This mission will be Victoria One.

On arrival Commander Lewis will continue to be in ground command and she will organize you as she sees fit. On arrival of the Hermes you will join that crew. It will be the current crew of Ares III, we'll tell you about that in a moment, and Lewis will assume command of Hermes.

It has been decided that the Hermes will dock at Discovery Station (Teddy hated calling it Space X even though the company crewed it) and the crew will have some R and R while the ship is re-furbed, inspected and supplied. They will then depart in a launch window that while not optimal is doable. They should arrive at Mars six to nine months after you depending on the launch date.

Now, as to you, psych has monitored you during training and reports you all work well together without a lot of 'who's in charge here' friction. That's good, but areas of control do need to be identified. Dr Abernathy obviously you will be in charge of health concerns both on the flight and ground. You will assist Dr Beck on his return to maintain the crew. Follow the protocols; if someone on the crew requires rest, pull them, even though there will only be three. Its going to be a long trip so let's do not let everyday exhaustion become clinical.

Major Washburn, you are to be in command of flight operations. Your job will be to maintain the directional flight of the craft, land it and the equipment sleds, and fly it back to Hermes. I understand the doctor and Ms Park have been trained to assist you, so you won't have to sit at watch the screens constantly. Initially in the flight you may not get a lot of sleep, we understand that, however"

"I didn't get a lot of sleep in the service sir." She smiled.

"True enough. I understand that. But get some. Ms Park and Doctor Abernathy will assist you, and Doctor Abernathy will make sure you are alert and able to fly."

"Ms Park, so both of you will know, is the one that came up with the idea to use Orion. She is more familiar with it that anyone that is physically fit enough to fly, in fact she is the world's leading expert on the craft. She is also, from her role in Satcom and her work with the planning group, the most familiar with the mission and it's expected challenges. Ms Park, it is your ship. You are promoted to the rank of Command Astronaut pursuant to the general flight organizational rules. I would say congratulations, but given the task ahead of you, sympathies might be more appropriate. It's going to tough guys, but you three are the best prepared, and it's got to be done. Our only other choice is to strip down the MAV and hope it can reach the fly by orbit by remote. And it probably doesn't have the fuel to do that. Any questions?"

"Just one sir. When do we leave?" Mindy asked.

"Two actually sir. Does this mean that Mindy buys the drinks tonight?"

"Commander buys the first round, that's the tradition. Commander Park? How quickly can you lose at poker? There is a primary launch window to Discovery Thursday evening," Teddy smiled, referring to the long tradition that the flight doesn't launch until the crew beats the commander in a game of five card stud.

"Pretty fast! Is our ship ready?"

"Almost. You all need to meet with Elrond and Annie has a press conference later to introduce you to the public officially. Tomorrow you fly to KSC, we will skip isolation as you can do that in transit to Discovery. Good luck and Godspeed."

The crew didn't go out for a drink that night as all were too wound up. No one was upset about the command structure, although neither had known of Mindy's involvement in the flight planning. As they left the building Mindy stopped both for a second and told them she was as surprised as they were.

"Mindy, I'll say this once. I don't want to say it again, and I think I speak for Dana on this as well. This idea you had for the relief? It got me my trip in space. You're our commander and we are damned proud. We are going to make this the best crew ever. No one had better fuck with you about it, or we'll both kick their asses. Understand?"

"Thanks."

"Mindy," Dana added with a grin, "I would follow you anywhere you magnificent bitch."

They were free to leave the compound, but decided to stay on campus. Since beginning training, they had been placed in apartments in the astronaut training campus, and since they faced the press in the morning all thought a good night's sleep was in order.

Soon though, Anna was bored and made a run to a liquor store, then grabbed pizza, called Dana and both converged on Mindy's for celebratory martinis and pizza. Mindy was just finishing up a call to her parents when they arrived. Her folks were both proud and terrified.

The drinks flowed and soon all were relaxed by alcohol and carbs. They played the traditional game of poker with a deck that Mindy had stacked so that Anna drew a royal flush in Hearts, Dana the same flush in Diamonds, and Mindy the 2, 3,4, 5 and 9 in four different suits. She really didn't like poker that much and didn't want to spend her last night in Houston playing it.

"So" Dana asked, "do either of you actually know Lewis or Watney?"

NASA was a close community, although huge, and astronauts met a lot of other astronauts while training so it was a fair question.

"Uh," Mindy stammered, while Anna looked back and forth between them.

"I... I need to tell you guys something" the mocha skinned Dana said as her dark brown eyes filled with tears, "and I hope it doesn't get me thrown off the crew, I should, I should have told someone before, but its bound to come out Mindy and, well, I know Mark. I was his doctor when he got sick in Costa Rica. When he couldn't stay, well, we came back and applied for Ascan together. He got accepted first. It was a long time ago and, well I didn't think it mattered but..."

That began a night of confessions so everyone was on the same level. All swore to never repeat what they learned of each other's pasts, and all kept that promise. No way anyone was going to get pulled from this team.

The next morning the press conference went well. Mindy was pressed hard by the volume of things thrown her way, but the questions were mostly easy. Each reporter though kept referring to it as a rescue mission. Finally she had enough and as Annie had coached her, and was sitting beside her in fact, she let go.

"Wait, stop right there. Victoria One isn't a rescue. Mark Watney and Missy Lewis are doing just fine and showing amazing adaptability to their circumstances. They could wait the full four years if need be, but it would not be safe due to the temporary nature of the habs. We are not rescuing them, we are relieving them. Don't think of us as the rescue squad, we are the relief pitchers coming in to close out the game, and not just Ares III, but we're going to do the Ares IV mission while we are there. Earlier you asked as to the expense? Well we are using a ship that is already paid for, and doing twice the work that Ares III was projected to do. This is a savings, and no matter what the expense, we are NASA, the American space agency. We don't leave people behind. We relieve them and bring them home."

Everyone at NASA had heard these questions before, but of all of them, only Mindy could give that answer to a reporter without sounding angry. Annie knew Mindy was the sort of commander she could work with.

As a result of this, Victoria One finally had the traditional patch worn by the crew. It was designed and embroidered overnight and had a clearly female pitcher, in a uniform that had a mini skirt, throwing a baseball that looked like Mars towards the viewer. A banner hanging across Mars read "Victoria One." Annie Montrose thought it was vaguely sexist, like the nose art on a World War II bomber, but the crew thought it was kind of cool. Enough were made for all of their jump and EVA suits, plus some spares for them to share with whoever they liked. A slightly smaller one was available at the NASA gift shops and online by the next day, with tees, hoodies, caps and jackets within days.

Two days later the crew was blasted into space, and two days after that Victoria One launched on Orion III. It was a two stage system, and after they had used maneuvering thrusters to move away from Discovery X and orient the ship, the first stage burned for 180 seconds before being kicked away by the second stage. It burned for a couple of minutes, assisted by the powered landing sled which was kicked away at the end of its burn. Anna flew the ship without trouble, and all burns were perfect. They would be at Mars in seven months. Mindy only threw up twice, which was one less time than Dana. Anna seemed to be into it.

"Hang on Mark, I'm coming for you" each thought to themselves.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter VI**

In the time the Orion crew was training, Lewis and Watney were working on modifying the rover, pollenating flowers by hand as there are no bees in space, and generally trying to figure out their relationship. Then came harvesting, drying seed stock for the garden at Ares IV, as well as completing the Ares III mission. This was a lengthy process and Orion launched with great fanfare on Earth, but little notice other than well wishes from Mars. Mark didn't even know for sure what day they launched on, or even for certain that it had. He thought he had been told it had three crew by Commander Lewis, but he wasn't sure about that. He had work to do, both for the mission and a side project he developed, and was focused on it. There was nothing he could do about a ship 15 light minutes away especially since he figured to die before it ever got there. He was only working in hopes that Missy might make it.

The hardest part of the mods was drilling holes in the roof of the rover 'trailer' as Mark called it so the various machines and equipment could be loaded in. Careful and constant inspection of the hab had left them with plentiful hab canvas to seal it, and since they were ripping sheet metal off the MAV platform anyway, they covered it with a layer of metal both inside and out for sturdiness and protection from the background radiation of Mars. Then they put a box of radioactive death inside, and after a few test drives ripped out a bunch of insulation so they wouldn't fry.

The second-best part of their prep time was the dinner of fresh veggies and a full ration in celebration of Lewis's birthday. The absolute best part, at least in the mind of Lewis, was Mark using the frame from Alex's cot, copious plastic sheeting, some hose from the MAV platform and a box of radioactive death to make a hot bath for her to enjoy when she came in from her shift of working in the rover on her birthday. Him singing the 'Happy Birthday' song, poorly, came in a distant third. In the end, in an effort to conserve water that was going to be recycled anyway, Missy invited Mark to join her.

Best bath ever. They both thought so.

Once the rover was ready mechanically, they spent days packing up food and the samples they had recovered. A communication system was rigged but given the variance from standard aerial length video would be cumbersomely slow. So while waiting for the seed stock to dry and orders to actually pack and go, they down loaded all the entertainment they could.

Mark knew about the Orion plan, but had been too busy to keep up with it. Missy was handling all that anyway. He had generally avoided communications with anyone except his parents, the botanists, nutritionists and engineers at NASA, and the occasional brief letter to the Hermes as he tended to piss people off when he talked to them and it wasn't worth the bother. He didn't really, but after the Beth explosion it felt that way. He and Beth had healed somewhat. A long conversation where he explained how sorry he was for hurting her, and how he had no idea how she felt because he was admittedly stupid in affairs of the heart helped. What helped the most was telling her how much he missed her and that they should put off talking about it until they were face to face on the Hermes and that at that time he would be open to anything and hopeful for a lot.

Missy's life took a turn as well. Word leaked, probably via the courthouse, that Bob had filed for divorce and the entire universe came to hate and despise him all at once. In addition, the five year wait to see Missy had been compressed down, provided they lived, so he began to beg forgiveness and ask her to take him back. She was ambivalent at first. She still loved him and understood that her going to Mars was what broke their relationship. She hated that he had been willing to kick her when she was down. They were working on it.

Bob had withdrawn the divorce before it was granted, but few of the public cared. They already hated him. Through Annie, Missy asked the world for privacy as they worked things out, and began talking to Bob again more and more, but always while Mark was outside working on the rover and other things. During that time she got almost as much fan mail as Mark and like Mark wrote a general answer letter for NASA to use saying she appreciated the support but had to focus on their work in order to survive.

Afterwards conversations with Bob, she would inevitably expect Mark to sleep with her for what she described as a "grudge f**k." Mark was cool with this as he hated Bob anyway. He adored Missy, and she was the hottest woman on the planet as far as he was concerned. Okay, she didn't have a lot of competition at the moment, but still, she was quite lovely and he both adored and lusted after her.

Still, when alone his thoughts drifted back to Mindy, the girl he had been with the week before isolation. She was beautiful, kind, warm, sensual, just tons of fun, and they clicked. Like every other great woman in his life, the timing was just wrong. The other two, a doctor that had cared for him in Costa Rica when he took ill and had to leave the Peace Corp, and an Air Force pilot he met while on the rebound from Beth were also great women he cared for and even loved, but again, the timing was just wrong. Certainly, by now Mindy had moved on, and there was no way he was going to try to contact her given the scrutiny the mission was under. He thought about spelling out in rocks with Morse code how he felt for the satellites to pick up, but decided not to as that would no doubt cause a super-sized industrial strength shit storm on Earth, the Hermes and Mars. He did add her name along with a few others to his side project. She deserved that. Mindy had certainly moved on. Girls like Mindy, Anna and Dana didn't stay unattached long. All this, along with the Beth situation, and the Missy situation, made Mark confused and depressed. He would have to keep an eye on that and threw himself into his work and side project to overcome that.

"So we're close to ready, when should we set our target to leave? NASA wants our input and I want your opinion. I don't think they know how far along we are." Missy asked over dinner.

"Well, its 3200 kilometers away, so at 50 k a day, at best that's 64 days. Figure we will not average that much, some of its uphill and we will have to go around some crap on the way, let's say 100 days in the rover. I really don't want to live in a MAV after that for another 100 days, so we should leave about four months before Orion is expected?"

"NASA wants us there faster in case we break down. They can just land the botany hab and Orion where we are, then re-purpose Ares IV to do Ares IV's assignments. Makes sense when you think about it. What do you think our odds are?"

"Of having some sort of break down? Probably 100%."

"Yeah, I meant getting there."

Mark thought for a minute wanting to remain positive and not reveal how he really felt. "Well, its like Beth says, its you and me against Mars. Don't bet on Mars."

"That's what I'm saying to myself over and over. Btw, Orion launched. A couple months ago. So, we have about a month."

"Oh. Everything go okay?"

"Yes. NASA's first all-female crew. So totally professional and nothing went wrong. They seem like a good group. I didn't get to select them, or even have any input but they seem alright. The commander is a bit green, but she was the one that came up with using Orion III, so she must be pretty smart."

"You talked to them?"

"No, NASA wants them focused. Like I said, they're green. We will be cleared for direct communication once they are about two months out, but who knows if the comm system will work that day. I'm feeling pretty good. And having most of the month in relaxed mode would be good so we can rest up. This corn is awesome by the way. You'll make someone a good wife someday Mark."

"Thanks."

"Hermes is almost home. You talk to Beth? Seems like everything is cool with you guys again."

"Yeah, we're working on it. You know. She did volunteer to give up 14 months of her life to rescue my sorry ass, so I guess we're okay."

"Relieve. Not rescue."

"Right. Relieve. You talk to home today?" Mark asked, he couldn't bring himself to say Bob's name around Missy.

"Yeah, just Bob. He's groveling. Which is nice."

"Oh, so..."

"Grudge f**k. Yeah." She grinned. 


	7. Chapter 7

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 7**

"Is this seat taken?" Beth asked Rick before sitting beside him in the control room.

"Take it, it's yours. You okay?"

Beth stared out the foot-thick aluminum oxide glass window that was currently not shuttered. The moon was just off to the left and looked larger than the Earth almost directly ahead of them. The view was intoxicating and worth the trip by itself.

"Yeah, I'm good. Bored. I think I'm going to spend most of the next six weeks reloading content to make the trip back more bearable. How are you?"

"I know what you mean about bored. The last three days of this trip seem to take as long as the first three months. I'm good, why?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering what Marissa thought about NASA's take back. Worried about you I guess."

"Listen to ya!" Rick laughed. "Marissa and I, well, we've been together since Test School at Edwards. She knew coming in I wanted to fly. She's not happy, but she understands. She's our biggest supporter. We're good. And I wouldn't trust picking up Lewis to anyone else. What about you? Why are you coming back? There are..."

"Nobody else knows these systems like I do, I, well I don't want to brag, but I really am the best. And no one is waiting for me at home anyway."

"Except the millions of guys that bought your poster."

"Yeah. well I think most of them just, well, they aren't interested in who I am. Hey, can I ask you something?"

"If it's about Mark..."

"No, I mean, we can talk about that if you want to. You, well I know you know, there's really no such thing as privacy here, we talked and we're going to talk again face to face, you know, about us and if we have a future and"

"Beth, I love Mark, you know that, but when he said he had no idea you felt that way about him? He was telling you the truth. He really thought you and Chris were together. I know,,, he's an idiot. Smartest idiot I know but"

"Still an idiot. Yeah, I figured that out. No, I was going to ask... wait I was going to ask two things. First, why didn't you ask to scrub me for part two?"

"You already answered that" Rick smiled, "no one knows these systems better than you, and you are the best at what you do. No one on this crew is replaceable. No one. If one person dropped out, I was going to tell them to load up Ares IV. What's your other question?"

"Uh, thanks. You really didn't even need to ask if we would return you know. My other question, well, me and everyone else too I think, we all seem tired lately. I feel exhausted. Are you sure want to try to get us there and back again?"

"Uh, you see the centrifugal gravity display there? Reach over and peel the tape off."

"Tape?" Beth asked as she looked. The display indicated an artificial gravity rotation of 1.0. Touching it she did feel tape and when she peeled it off, the otherwise clear tape had a red and black mark on it, and the display read 1.3.

"You asshole! No wonder I feel tired, I must weigh 200 pounds!"

"It's been like that since Houston sent us the plans to park at Discovery, I wanted everyone to be ready for earth. We're 36 hours out, go ahead and slow the spin, it's the arrow right below it and"

"I know which arrow it is. Geez, why didn't you tell us?"

"We all needed the exercise, and it's easier than hitting the gym as much as Houston wants us to. And we're going to look great at the beach!"

"You know, I have noticed my legs and gluts were really toned lately." Beth smiled.

"Girrrrrl yo booty gonna be so fine!" Rick laughed.

"Stop, that's inappropriate for my commander to say. It's going to be spectacular." Beth laughed. "Have you seen that vid about "Watney's Harem?"

"Yeah, Alex showed it to me. I just hope Mark doesn't see it or we will never bring his ego back down."

"You don't think..."

"What? Mark and the Victoria crew? Are you kidding? Lewis would kill him."

Ironically it was about that time that Missy was coming back to reality after yet another session with Mark. They shared a mattress, Beth's coincidently, placed behind the two front seats in the rover where the other two seats would have been had Mark not ripped them out for being pointless.

"Mark?"

"Missy?"

"You know this has to stop when we link up with Victoria don't you?"

"Well, I can only imagine it will be less frequent anyway. I'm not sure how that's going to work out."

"We won't ever be truly alone. Look, I guess what I'm getting at is it will stop. It must, but I don't regret anything. You're an amazing man and I love you. I... I think I owe to Bob to try again, but I don't know if that is going to work. I don't know if I want it to work... I mean..."

"I understand. We have what we have, whatever that is."

"No, I mean... When we get back to Earth, we can be close can't we?"

"Like this kind of close?"

"Yes."

"I guess that depends on you and Bob."

"Yeah. I guess it does."

"In the meantime can we not worry about it? There is one woman on the whole planet, and I want her to be mine, okay?"

"Okay." Missy smiled. "I'll do the panels if you will dump the buckets."

"Why do I always have to..."

"Minion. Remember?"

"Yessir mamm. Right away mamm." Mark laughed as he rose to get his EVA suit on.

The buckets were filled with excrement. A 4-month journey produced way more than they could effectively carry, and they only needed so much to start the bacterial growth anyway. The rest Mark could harvest from Orion III. Every few days a hole was dug, and they contributed their waste to the frozen wasteland that was Mars. By the book they should be in sealed plastic bags, but they would have run out of appropriate bags long ago anyway. It might screw up future scientists to discover, but there wasn't much they could do about it. Truthfully, digging a hole was a waste of time but one they did anyway. It was okay though as it gave Mark time to work.

The panels were strapped in saddle bags made from hab canvas attached to the rover. Both astronauts were needed to easily get them down, but then they were just laid on the ground more or less facing the sun. Each had started with a bracket to lift them up, but those could not be easily stored in the rover, so they stayed at the hab. When it was possible to find rocks to lean them against this was done, and there were usually plenty of rocks around.

The rover sucked all the air out of the compartments before allowing the doors to open. To conserve water, Mark would open the "poop bucket" every time so that its' contents would freeze dry. This kept the odor down to a minimum and the water in it was ultimately recycled. It was gross to think about, so neither crew member tried to do so. Water was their most precious resource, they would die without it. When Mark thought about it though, they could go longer on Mars without water than without heat, so really plutonium was their most precious resource.

This was another thing they tried not to think about.

Back on Earth, Teddy was feeling pretty good about everything. Watney and Lewis were on pace with Victoria One to arrive nearly at the same time, certainly within days barring any problems. Victoria One had a fine crew that knew how to work the media, and thus congressional funding, from space, and Ares III returned as heroes, epic ones as they were going back. The interviews were endless, and on top of it all, they even looked great. All were early 30's, fit, lean and muscular. Annie had them appearing as much as possible in tees and slacks and did quite a bit of work out film as well. She even talked then into a day at the beach so they could be photographed in swimwear for posters and the media. Beth hated this and Alex thought it strange but his wife liked the pay bump from sales so Alex was all in. Communications were opened between the Ares III crew and Victoria I, and even over the long distance they appeared to become fast friends. Both spent copious media time bragging on each other's courage and dedication.

What had been a disaster media wise was turning into the best thing that happened public relations wise since Apollo. If it didn't turn into a full-on disaster.

On arrival at Discovery technicians went straight to work on Hermes, doing the upgrades, refurbishment, refueling and restocking as quickly as possible. It had always been planned that the sleeping areas on rotation disk two would be expanded with more rooms or pods, these literally snapped and bolted into place and were connected within a couple of days as they were designed to integrate with the ship and were prefab. It was more work setting up an outdoor concert stage than it was adding them to the Hermes, except the expense was much higher and the environment more challenging. Still, the Hermes had been designed for six, and would now, if all went well, carry all nine. In order to balance the disk, it would be able to carry up to twelve, but most of that area would be stuffed with samples on the way back, plus food and water for the round trip.

The crew arrived by shuttle at KSC and went into isolation so that their immune systems could adapt to all the germs and viruses ours fight off every day. All received steroid shots to boost them, as well as a new round of inoculations and flu shots. This was standard procedure for every long term-flight.

As one might expect the first order of business for all was a hot shower that lasted for an hour which was to be followed by dinner with their families in a visiting gallery. Irene was waiting for Beth in the women's locker room as she exited in a bath robe.

"Uh" Beth stammered at her presence. "A little privacy maybe?"

"We've met, Irene Shields. I am the psychologist assigned to"

"I know who you are, I was just surprised that anyone would be here. I still am."

"We're off the record. You have doctor client confidentiality with me, but I need you to tell me, what is going on with you and Watney?"

"What makes you think anything is?"

"Mark Watney, to the American taxpayer, was and is the face of this mission as its media rep. Annie Montrose used him constantly, and he was constantly filming spots and transmitting them, even after they were marooned. Then four months ago, he basically stopped communicating. Now, he has a lot on his plate and his comms work about an hour a day if we're lucky right now, but his daily notes to Ares III have stopped, his daily notes to his parents are now weekly at best. No one else has noticed this except Annie, and she thinks it's because of his workload and the comm situation. I don't. I reviewed back to the time he withdrew. It started with a private channel message between he and you. Then there was a flurry to the crew of the Hermes, all private channel. Do you know how many times he used his private channel to talk to you guys before then?"

"Uh"

"None. None at all. Now he is withdrawn and if I had to guess, depressed. Now, I can't open that message, the encryption is personal at both ends, but I can ask Kapoor or Henderson to order you to, and they will see it as well. I imagine you might be scrubbed after that, perhaps the entire crew. Am I wrong about that?"

"Please, no, please... don't. We all want to...we're the best crew for it and we left them there. Don't do that."

"My first duty is to the safety of the crew. I don't have to tell anyone or ask anyone to order anything. But I need to know, for Mark's sake. What is going on with you two?"

"Uh..."

"You're a couple?"

"No... we"

"You were intimate, involved in some way? Sorry to ask but"

"Not on the mission, never. Look, when we were in Ascan, yeah, we were together. But I was a class ahead of him so it, well it wasn't even against the rules. And we were close, really, really close. Then I got named as sysop for Ares IV, that was still no problem until..."

"Until he was named as an alternate?"

"No. Until he was named to crew. When O'Brian withdrew, I mentioned him to Lewis. That's all I did, I told her he was a great guy and funny, and really smart and.."

"And she picked him because of you?"

"No, I don't think so. She had two choices, but Mark had a masters in engineering on top of his doctorate so it made him the best choice. Annie Montrose pushed hard for him too I understand. The night he was announced we broke it off. I was so happy for him, you know? But we couldn't be a couple and even train together, much less travel."

"But you continued to be anyway, didn't you?"

"No. I swear, nothing happened on Hermes or in training, totally professional, both of us."

"What about on planet?"

"No! Nothing there either, we were totally professional."

"So, Lewis learned about it? What am I missing?"

"I told the commander about my feelings..."

"So you still had romantic feelings?"

"Of course, have you ever been around Mark? But I told Commander Lewis just past proximity point. I thought I could cope with it, but I was particularly lonely and I was starting to get weak. I figured everything before then, well, there were no rule violations, but I knew if I told Mark how I was feeling, well, we would probably break a lot of rules. I thought Missy could help me. Give me advice."

"Did she?"

"She ordered, specifically ordered me to not act on how I felt. She wasn't mad, she understood. She told me to spend more time with Chris, Rick and Alex, and her for that matter to take my mind off things. She told me to write home more often and even keep a diary to help me sort through how I felt, and it did help. I was able to remain professional until.."

"Until you landed and could actually be alone together in the hab?"

"What? No... I stayed in control."

"Then what happened?"

"I saw Mark get stabbed by an antenna and blown away in the storm. He was evac partner. Alex and Lewis were together, and Rick and Chris. You pair off by physical size. Mark is the smallest guy, so he was my partner. We went last. He got hit... I watched the only man I had ever really loved die. I saw his monitor go dead on my HUD. When I started to search for him, the only guy I had ever felt anything real for, Lewis ordered me to the MAV. Our trajectory was off, and I cried all the way to space, and probably would have all the way to Hermes if Lewis hadn't contacted us and told us Mark was alive. I knew then I would do whatever it took to get him back from that horrible place. Whatever it took. And I wasn't going to hide anymore, I was going to live my best life."

"I see."

"Yeah. So, I wanted to tell him how I felt, but, well NASA monitors everything. Then Rick got a message from home on his private channel about his son and I mentioned that it must be weird for the monitors at NASA to know all about his private life. He reminded me that the private channel is encrypted and not monitored. So, I waited until I was on duty, it was just as they came up with Purnell and Orion, so I contacted Mark under the pretense of getting him and Lewis to go along with our plan to man the ship on the return trajectory. They both said no. Then I asked to speak to Mark privately and..."

"You told him."

"No, I was going to. Before I could he told me he wanted me to date Chris 'cause he thought he might die there and he wanted us to be happy and not have regrets. I had followed Lewis's order so well that Mark actually thought I had it for Chris and him for me! I thought he felt the same way I did, you know how you can tell from the way guys look at you? While I sent him the first part, about the crew, he had that look that said 'I wish I could kiss you.' I mean, I loved him, watched him die and couldn't do anything about it and he's stranded in a place with no breathable air, ground that is poisonous, a view that is just red desert and so cold. Horribly cold and desolate...Mars is what Dante had in mind... and.. he gets all noble about how he might not get off Mars and he wants me to date his best friend? I was furious. Well, to be honest, I didn't handle it well."

"Did you tell him how you feel?"

"In a way I suppose I did. I said, 'Fuck you Mark Watney, you're a pig.'... well, I yelled it then disconnected the message. I was crying so loud everyone else woke up and ran to the comm to see what was wrong. By the way, you might want to tell Annie she wants photos for posters of Alex wearing something tight, that's all I'm saying about that. I wouldn't take his messages for a while. Everyone on the crew chewed him out. That was the other messages you saw. Since then we've talked. We agreed to not talk about it all until we were face to face, and not to act on anything until we were on Earth. See, we both respect Commander Lewis, and the mission. We tried to follow the rules. I got weak, but even then, well, we didn't really break them. So that's why Mark and I aren't talking much, that and how much work they had to do, and the comm situation. But we're good now. We can make it work, we're both putting the mission first and"

"Relax. You're not scrubbed."

Beth's few minutes of mortal terror turned to relief so great her eyes filled with tears."

"Thanks, I promise you that"

"That you will be in my office every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 am to work on skills to help you cope? Yes, I'm sure that will be enough. Thanks for being honest with me."

"Thanks for not burning me."

"You're the best at what you do. We're going to learn to cope with your feelings and keep them contained and channeled into something productive. I have to ask, if you two called it off when crew training started for the mission, what caused your feelings to surface?"

"Oh, as we were approaching Proximity, I got a message that a family member, an aunt, died. Breast cancer, she had been in remission and it came back quick and"

"I'm so sorry Beth that must have been horrible, were you close?"

"No, I mean, I loved her but that wasn't it. Her and my mom are... were really close and it broke my heart I couldn't be there for mom. She understood, travel comes with the job, she actually said that to me. Anyway, I was feeling pretty emo anyway and I was just so sad I couldn't be there, and we were in the break room having dinner when I got the message and I just couldn't help it, I started crying and I couldn't stop. Mark put his arm around me and I cried on his shoulder, I must have cried a long time because I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was blue shift and Mark was still there holding me, stroking my hair and telling me it would be alright. I must have been asleep like that for four hours or so, but he never woke me, never stopped telling me it would be okay and it just,,, every word, every action, every breath, it felt like he was saying 'I love you Beth.' That's when I knew. A few days later I couldn't cope with not being with Mark, so I talked to Lewis. That's the whole story."

"I hope you and Mark make a great couple. I think you will. In fourteen months. Understand?"

"Yes. I... thanks again."

"You're welcome. Tomorrow is Wednesday. See you at nine." 


	8. Chapter 8

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 8**

"CQ CQ CQ Rover One, this is Victoria One Actual. CQ CQ CQ."

The comm set in the rover barked its incoming traffic chime and Mark heard noise through the head set laying on the T-Bar to the rover, where he always left his when he went to sleep. He and Lewis believed the rover was within days of the Ares IV landing site, but had gone the entire trip without contact from Victoria One. The occasional messages they got from Houston told them that all was well, except that Victoria One was having trouble with its low gain FM signals.

Mark had thought he saw sleds landing the morning before, and a ship landing just over the horizon that morning, but still there was no contact. He hoped to be able to pick up their beacon to guide the rover with, but all day was nothing but static. Half awake, with Commander Lewis asleep beside him, he listened carefully.

"CQ CQ CQ Rover One, this is Victoria One Actual. CQ CQ CQ."

This time Mark knew he heard it, nearly leaped up and grabbed his headset.

"Repeat Victoria, this is Rover One. Copy?" He nearly shouted into the mic.

"What is it Mark?" Lewis mumbled.

"Good morning Rover One. This is Victoria One actual. It is good to hear your voice. We have had some transmission problems, but we landed yesterday and made repair. Status please, Copy."

"Its the Orion, they've landed."

"Head set!" Missy demanded, holding her hand toward Mark.

Mark looked around and not seeing Missy's head set surrendered his own. Happiness washed over him as he knew their last great challenge was coming to an end. Once at Orion III, they would be relatively safe until time to go to Hermes. Provided the old craft had it in her to get to space, they should be fine. Mark barely heard Missy's side of the conversation. He wished he could hear it all as the commander of Victoria One sounded familiar.

"Come in Victoria One, Rover One Actual here. Please repeat, copy."

"Who did she sound like?" Mark wondered to himself.

"Thanks for that. Any idea how far away we are? Copy"

"Great, we can probably do that today. Copy."

"Hmm, well, I will find out soon enough. They probably drew from Ares IV, V and VI so perhaps one of them. I should have kept up with that better..." Mark thought.

"Health is good. Watney is grumpy and smells horrible. Food is okay, veggies gone except the seed stock and potatoes. Rover is operable within normal and expected parameters. Water acceptable, approximately 130 liters available. Batteries charged, we will be leaving here shortly. Is beacon on? Copy."

"Excellent. I will, I look forward to meeting you as well Commander Park. Rover One Actual out, we're on our way. Over." Missy smiled.

"Park? Did she say..." Mark thought as Missy handed the headset back.

"Let's get the panels in, we are only about 27 kilometers from them, and since they have their local antenna fixed the beacon is now on. We can get there today Mark!" Missy nearly yelled as she stood as high as the cabin would allow and threw her arms around him.

"Uh, who is on that craft Commander?"

"The crew Mark, geez, let's go I want to shower and eat and sleep in a real cot tonight."

"Uh, okay but first tell me, who is the crew? Seriously, I have no idea."

"Geez Mark did you never look it up?"

"No, you were keeping track of it, I, well since the whole thing with Beth I guess I"

"Have been super mopey. Check. Everyone on Mars noticed that. Which is me, but I can't help thinking we're in the home stretch now Mark! Come on! You're great but I only have you to myself today. I want happy Mark!"

"Sorry, I'll try, but really who is on that ship?"

Missy sighed as she powered up her tablet and found the message.

"Okay the Commander wrote her thesis on Orion and knows more about it that anyone, she worked on mission planning before the launch and was the one that came up with the idea to retask it. She's supposed to be brilliant. In a couple months she went from a red shift tech in satcom to working with Sanders, Kapoor and Henderson,"

"What's her name?"

"I'm getting to that. Melinda. Commander Melinda Park" Missy answered.

"Mindy. She goes by Mindy."

"You know her?"

"Uh, yeah. I didn't know she was in satcom."

"Oh? Where do you know her from?" Missy smiled, glad that the despondent Mark would have someone he knew on... wait a second...

"She told me the Department of Hipsters."

"Did you know each other socially or something?"

"Yes. A lot of the 'or something'." Mark replied, thinking honesty would be the best path to follow.

"Uh, When Mark, before or after Beth?"

"After. Right before we left, she's wonderful, you're going to just love her. But yeah, when I left, we promised to meet up when I got back. We were not really a couple, but I liked her a lot."

"When were you going to tell me this?"

"I wasn't. Why would I? I didn't know she was on the Victoria mission."

"Well this is going to be the most awkward command transfer ever. Thanks a lot Watney."

"I didn't know, she, well I didn't know she... She washed out of Ascan is all I know; how did she get on the ship?"

"By being the only person at NASA that knew enough about it to run it apparently. You don't by chance know Anna Washburn or Dana Abernathy, do you?"

"Why are you asking me that?" Mark replied, fearing the awful truth.

"Because that is the pilot and the flight surgeon" she answered as Mark's face turned beet red and he looked down as though the most interesting thing in the world was on the floor.

"Oh dear god Watney! Spill it."

"Anna and I, well, after Beth she was kind of my rebound girl. She was on Ares V, one of the pilot candidates and I didn't even make the list for it, so, well, we dated. Very shortly. She's really nice once you get past her, well, she can be brusque. But"

"Abernathy Mark. Now. Stop wasting time."

"My doctor in Costa Rica, we left there together and applied to NASA together. That's who I was dating when I met Beth. I mean, Beth didn't know her, we had split before any of us were accepted."

Missy just stared at Mark.

"Did you split because you were e-mailing and calling Beth?"

"Uh. Probably?" Mark winced.

Missy just stared. She had no moral high ground to stand on but still...

"Mark, have you fucked every woman at NASA or just the ones on Mars?"

"Uh, just Mars... you know, when you say it that way it..."

"Shut up Watney. Come one, back to bed."

"Don't you want to get the panels in and get going?"

"No. Grudge Fuck."

"You talk to Bob or something?"

"No. You're the grudge. If I can't get laid for 14 months while you're surrounded by the Watney Sluts of Houston you're taking care of me one more time. And don't even think about doing it on my ship with any of them. Either of my ships. Any of them. Or Beth. Got it?"

"Yes Missy."

"I'm Commander Lewis now." 


	9. Chapter 9

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 9**

It was awkward.

Mindy had two messages to send upon the Rover's arrival. The first signaled an immediate video, the other that video would be sent within two hours as the travelers needed medical and aesthetic attention first. On seeing the condition of Lewis and Watney, she sent the second.

They left everything in the rover except the seed stock and bacterial samples that needed to stay warm. Those were kept in a warming container, which was a cooler placed near the RTG. Mark had carefully monitored their condition and didn't want them to overheat or these would have been left in the rover as well. Lewis and Watney had been traveling for nearly three months and were exhausted and filthy. As they only wore their EVA's a couple times per day that happened to be their cleanest cloths. Neither had actually showered in that time, although every day they wiped down with a damp cloth, and every few days a tub like sample container was filled with water and soap, then they would stand in it and bathe with a cloth as well as they could. Both needed showers, and even though they hand washed their indoor work clothes and skivvies the same way, they needed new clothes. Fortunately, those were in great supply on the Orion III.

The airlock was big enough for both Watney, Lewis and the cooler and following tradition, the lowest rank went first.

"There you are" Mindy whispered as she looked into the window of the airlock to see Mark in person for the first time since isolation.

She had whispered the same thing a half hour earlier when they saw the rover approaching via the viewing port in the command center.

It was what she said when she first saw the photos during the evac and saw Lewis dragging Mark to the Hab.

It was what she said when Mark picked her up in Houston for their first real date.

He looked horrible and filthy.

Mark had not been able to shave or cut his hair in about two months as one of the trimmers that had a vacuum to suck the cut hair away broke beyond repair and Missy demanded that the other be reserved for her. Mark felt pretty feral by that time anyway and didn't argue.

Missy was a hot mess too but did seem to be in better shape emotionally than Mark. She had a determined look about her face, one that Mindy recognized. It was the same face she saw in the mirror whenever she asked herself if she was really up for leading the mission. Mindy saw it every morning and guessed Lewis did as well.

The air pressure stabilized, and both removed their helmets. Then Mindy was able to see how truly run down they both looked. They seemed healthy, but exhausted and on the brink of collapse.

The hatch opened.

"Permission to come aboard" Mark asked, forcing a smile.

"Permission granted. Welcome to Orion III and the Victoria One mission. Its an honor to have you." Mindy replied.

The two shuffled in, wincing at the pressure differential as their ears suddenly popped. Mark looked around as Dana came forward to assist him removing his EVA while Anna assisted Commander Lewis. Both looked stunned to finally be in the relative safety of a habitat that was not likely to rupture at anytime in the wind.

"Showers are over there, and we have new jumps for you. A year's supply we hope, but Hermes will bring more for the trip home. You both get a med check and then dinner."

"Then sleep?" Mark whimpered.

"No, we have some talking to do."

"You got that right." Commander Lewis stared.

"Oh, so you know about all that. Good. That's one of the things we must talk about, but off mic. Now, showers. Go." Mindy commanded.

Whether she could make such an order was suspect. Missy was to be in command on arrival, but it was clear it was Mindy's ship, and Mindy had not formally given it up yet. It didn't matter. They had a lot to discuss, but showers and real food came first.

Mindy keyed her mic and sent the message that would cause a celebration all over NASA and their home towns.

"Houston, Victoria One Actual. Be advised, five, repeat five, astronauts safely aboard."

Showers were supposed to be five minutes maximum, but both reveled in longer as the water would be filtered and recycled for the next round of showers, the ship didn't seem to run out of hot water, and because neither had really felt clean since Mark made Alex's cot into a bath, Brevity was waived for this occasion.

Dana gave both the once over, checked blood sugar, both low, heart rate and respiration, normal and weight, also low but not dangerously so. Neither had any major injuries and neither reported anything more than general soreness and exhaustion. Mark's exam took longer as Dana spent a good deal of time examining the scar from the antenna stabbing, but it was healed and appeared to require no immediate attention. EVA suits, especially filthy ones, tended to rub abrasions on various spots so those were tended to with a pain killing ointment. Germs were not really an issue, but it did contain an antiseptic compound as no one made one that did not. While Anna and Mindy helped Missy after her exam, Dana and Mark were able to speak in relative privacy.

"When did you run out?" Dr Abernathy asked.

"I brought enough down for the mission, the rest were in my stuff on Hermes, but its private so no one should"

'I didn't ask that Mark. Let's try again. When was the last time you had your meds?"

"About six or seven months ago. I rationed as long as I could."

"That's not good Mark. How do you feel?"

"Like I'm in Costa Rica."

"That's worse. Have you told Commander Lewis?"

"No, I didn't want her to worry and NASA doesn't know, you can't..."

"Doctor Patient confidentiality, we start a new regime in the morning. I have plenty. But you need to tell Lewis. And Mindy. If Lewis is anything like her, well, you can trust her, I think. It's not a scrub thing, lots of people deal with it successfully, but they need to know so they can give you the support you need. Please. Don't make me carry this alone."

"'Kay..,. when the time is right."

Mark finally got to shave off the tangled beard he had grown over the last two months and that alone made him feel much better, and with Dana's help in the back got a haircut as well, the cut hair being sucked into the vacuum as they worked. He looked almost human again, and as his body weight was down, every muscle seemed pronounced.

Missy looked much the same and was willing to shave her head to get rid of the tangled mess, but Mindy convinced her otherwise. It would not do to appear on camera looking like Ripley from Aliens III, a film Mindy coincidentally thought was a classic of the genre. Missy hardly spoke and she was nothing like the warm, friendly person she had been described to be. It was clear from her earlier comment she knew about Mindy and Mark, and did not seem forgiving about it, although they had broken neither a NASA rule nor protocol. One more problem to work through. It had been discussed at length among the Victoria crew over the almost eight months of the trip and decided that since in the rush of mission prep no one had actually asked them, they had not even withheld information.

Finally. Lewis and Watney put on loose fitting jump suits, each with an Ares III mission patch, and beside it an oval of Velcro which neither really noticed. Both looked thin and pale, but presentable. The low weight was understandable given their rationing, even with the addition of Mark's crop. Both looked pale given their lack of sunlight over their journey as the only time they were outside was to put out and recover the solar panels, and even then, they were in EVA's. Like the Hermes the Orion III had panels with tanning lights if only to assist in vitamin D production and thus calcium absorption, so both would be spending some time with it over the next few days.

Dana nodded to Mindy as they all gathered in the common area again. Mindy nodded back, the message was passed. Suspicion had been confirmed.

"So, my orders are to clean you up, have Doctor Abernathy check your vitals, feed you, then turn on the camera and turn over command. The media is begging for footage of you, but we need to get something out of the way first. Commander Lewis, I know by now you are aware of our histories with Mark. That's fine. You need to know that those are histories. We broke no rules, none of us were forbidden to see Mark at those times, Mark was not forbidden to see us. We were brought together randomly but we all put mission first. Like you, we adore Dr Watney, but you have our assurances that we will leave all that where it was and there will be no, uh, hanky panky during our mission. I say this now because while I was dating Mark, I learned that the best pizza in the world comes from Giordino's in Chicago and allegedly the best beer is a local brewery's IPA, so now let's eat." Mindy smiled as Dana and Anna brought a deep dish from the warmer and several beers in plastic containers to the table.

The beer was ice cold. It is easy to make things cold on Mars.

Mark was stunned. Lewis was too hungry to argue about protocol yet. She wasn't sure if beer was allowed on a NASA craft, in fact she was absolutely certain it wasn't, but at the moment she didn't care. It was cold and delicious, and she wasn't about to turn it down.

While everyone sat down, Mindy turned to what passed for a kitchen area on the living deck and returned with another tray.

"Oh my god! You brought garlic knots?" Mark shouted.

"Would I deliver a pizza a hundred million kilometers from Chicago and forget the garlic knots? He's not very bright is he Commander Lewis?"

"He has his moments. Grows great corn." Missy smiled as they dug in.

No one spoke much as they ate. The food would have been great except that it had been vacuum packed and frozen for most of a year, but it beat regular rations easily. For a moment Mark almost felt normal again. But he was still felt the stress in all those around him. Finally, when they had gorged themselves, Missy began the conversation they dreaded.

"I'm not sure what to do about this situation. Mark just learned this morning you three were the Victoria crew. That's what he told me, and I believe you Mark. Any ideas?"

"Nothing. We broke no rules and during crew selection no one ever bothered to ask if we knew either of you." Mindy replied.

"You were obliged to report it to"

"No one asked us. End of story. Maybe they should have, maybe somebody screwed that up, maybe decisions were being made fast and no one thought to ask, but you have the best possible crew for this ship, we are dedicated to this mission. We've talked for months, we all adore Mark, but we all dropped him for different reasons. Mark didn't break up with us, we did with him. Mark and I grew apart but remained friends. Mark entered mission training and Anna cast him off as a result. Mindy knew going in she would at best have a week before Mark went into isolation, and at best had a promise of a conversation when he returned. None of those reasons have changed. We are here to do a job. Relieve you, do the assigned work and research of the Ares IV mission, and as Armstrong and Aldrin said, our most important mission on Mars, I paraphrase, is to get off it. Besides we all have secrets we don't want NASA to know." Dana smiled. It was best if the dagger was in her hand rather than Mindy's.

"Whoa, wait a second, Mark hasn't done anything wrong and neither have.."

"Mark, how did you get those scratches on your back, thighs, hips and, uh, butt? Does Mars have a previously undiscovered wolf or Chupacabra population you failed to report to NASA?" Dana smiled.

"I see your point" Missy admitted. "So you will know, I had no intention of reporting anything, but as Commander Park said, there can't be any distractions. Can we commit to that?"

"Sure" Mark replied.

"Not you Mark, the rest of us." Anna said with a grin.

"Yes. Of course. We are your crew Commander, and it is an honor to serve with you. Both of you. You are both already legends at NASA and heroes to the world. Your trip overland to here is a thing of myth. Children will be told your story for generations. When I say we are honored I mean we are happy to be a footnote to the history you have made. As you get to know us better and learn our motivations, I think you will find this to be a great group to fly with. We are going to be a great team. Now, let's do this for the camera and get some rest. Those carbs are killing me."

"Okay" Lewis replied.

"You three are nobody's footnote" Mark gasped, choked with emotion.

"Sure it's not the beer instead of the carbs? I always figured you for a light weight." Anna said in an effort to lighten the mood.

"I could drink you under the table girl." Mindy replied.

"Call it Mark" Dana said.

"Mindy. I've seen her drink." Mark smiled, and all noticed, none more than Commander Lewis, who had missed that smile since the incident with Beth.

Mindy and her crew were to one side of the camera's view with Mark and Lewis to the other. The media demanded some footage on arrival, so NASA had made up a formal switching of command. Missy was told she would speak to the camera at the end and say the usual thoughts and prayers line, then they could turn it off while Annie gathered questions for a press briefing the next day. The goal here was for the public to see them and Annie felt this, although stupid to the crew, would play well.

"Houston, this is Orion III, Victoria I Actual. Greetings to all you at home on Earth. I am Commander Melinda Park, of the Victoria One crew, and earlier today we received some new members. It is my honor and pleasure to announce that Commander Melissa Lewis and Associate Commander Mark Watney have completed their journey safely and have joined us. In doing so they have explored more of the Martian surface than all Ares missions were planned to and have no doubt increased our knowledge of the planet exponentially. Commander Lewis, Dr Watney it is an honor and a pleasure to have you here at last."

"Uh, Associate Commander?" Mark asked quietly.

"You got promoted on the drive over here." Missy grinned.

"Oh. Thanks." Mark nearly laughed at the silliness of it all.

"Commander Lewis, it is my duty and pleasure to turn over command of the Ares IV station and Orion III to you, however, at present yourself and Dr Watney are out of uniform. Doctor Abernathy, Major Washburn, would you assist them please?"

Without saying anything they approached the pair and on the Velcro oval on their jump suits affixed a Victoria One patch beside their Ares III ones.

"Thank you. Commanders you are now in proper uniform" Mindy smiled.

"I will treasure this forever." Missy said as she looked at the patch.

"I... I... just, uh..." Mark stammered. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome. We are proud to have you. Now, Commander Lewis, I surrender the Command of Ares IV station and the Orion III craft, as well as the Victoria One mission to you. It has been my greatest honor to lead this crew to this point, and it is our pleasure to serve at your command. Please mark the time as 2:14 am Zulu." Mindy said as she extended a hand to shake Missy's.

"Thank you Commander Park. I ask that you continue to operate, lead, control and command the Orion III. You have done an exemplary job and you are to be commended, as well as Doctor Abernathy and Major Washburn. The journey you volunteered to take to relieve us was most certainly as arduous and dangerous as our own if not more so. Mark and I are so glad to be with you, and you have our never-ending gratitude. We are overwhelmed by your generosity in journeying to Mars for our benefit. You have sacrificed so much of your life to relieve us, we can never repay you. I should also thank all the great people at NASA, America and everywhere on earth, and not just on earth I guess since Hermes has launched, and Discovery is in orbit, for saving our lives. The quest for knowledge is not without risk, space is a dangerous place, but we are proud to represent you here. We came to Mars in peace, we came for all mankind. There will be a more formal press briefing after the crew has had some rest sometime tomorrow, but for now we ask for your thoughts and prayers. Mark and I are warm and safe. Thank you and good night."

Everyone stood until Mindy cut the camera off. Then Mark collapsed in tears.

"Come on big guy, let's get you to your bunk. You want to write your folks?" Dana asked.

"Yeah... that would be good."

Missy asked an awkward question quietly while Dana and Anna helped Mark up to the command center.

"What are the sleeping arrangements here?"

"Well NASA didn't give us any, but there are six fold down cots here, those things, they're not terrible and we have mattresses of a sort for them" Mindy said as she pointed, "and there is another up in the command center that folds down from the seats for in flight emergencies. In the upright configuration we have the seats, but they folded down into the cot position now and have added a foam mattress like those in the habs to it. It is actually the largest bed and I figured we put Mark there and we take these, unless you want to be by yourself upstairs and leave Mark to us." Mindy smiled.

"Uh that would work. Until NASA found out and brought us all up on fraternization charges. Good plan, let's go with the first one. Hey, I know I was, uh, a bit of a hypocrite earlier. Maybe tomorrow you and I can talk. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, but Mark isn't one of them. I'm just, well, exhausted and in shock that he knew all of you, what are the odds?"

"The way Mark got around, probably not as high as you think" Mindy smiled, "But you know, I don't regret a thing either. Mark's great. We broke it off for isolation, I knew that when I first went out with him, that it was going to end in a week. I didn't mean to, but you know as well as I, it doesn't take long to get emotionally invested in him. He's such a great, uh..."

"Guy?"

"I was thinking yoga master like naked twister partner, but yeah, guy too." Mindy giggled.

"True, especially in small spaces like a Hab cot. Or rover."

"Look, if you two want to continue, none of the rest of us will notice. We're not jealous, we all want him to be happy. I am supposed to ask for the shrink lady what's up with him lately though."

"No, we've stopped. I guess I'm like every other woman in his life. We're going to talk back on earth."

"Us too. I guess. We agreed to, but you know, things change. I'm not a middle school girl that can't move on from a crush, none of us are." Mindy replied.

"I don't think that Mark has changed. From the moment your name came up it was clear he was fond of you. If we hadn't been talking about my semi-ex husband I probably would have, well."

"I understand that's... uh, reassuring in a way. But, what is a semi ex-husband?"

"The guy that I'm married to and who demanded a divorce when we got stranded. Another conversation I must have when I get back home. And that is a lot of what is wrong with Mark right now I think, or a big part of it. He has at least three of those conversations to plan, at least, and I think... well. I think it's a struggle for him. As easy as he is to fall for, he falls himself just as easily. I knew I was right about how he felt about you from the look in his eyes over dinner."

"I was thinking the same thing about you and him, and how he looked at you. He's hurting right now isn't he?"

"I think he's just been brave too long. Look, I'll be honest, I may have been in command, but he is the one that came up with practically everything that has saved us so far, well, since the supply drop from Hermes, that was a group effort led by Rick. I came up with the idea to warm the rover but that was about it. He's the one that made it safe, invented all the mods, grew the crops, made about 600 liters of water from hydrazine and liquid oxygen... You know, uh, they've been up there a while should we check on them?"

It was about then that Anna returned.

"Mark is still upset; you guys want to talk to him?"

"Hydrazine and liquid oxygen?" You're going to have to tell me about that sometime." Mindy said as they ascended to the command cabin.

"If I knew how dangerous it was... well, it saved our lives."

The commanders arrived at Mark's bunk to find him wrapped in a blanket, shivering and crying as Dana held him.

"Mark, what's wrong?"

"They need to know Mark, this is worse than Costa Rica, but we can whip it, you, me, all of us."

"You can tell them, I don't care. What can NASA do anyway? Send me home?"

"Okay. If you're sure, I mean"

"I can order you to if you like, if that gives you cover" Missy said, but with kindness in her voice as if to let them know she would give them the order as an excuse, not with anger. Missy's heart was breaking to see Mark having come so unglued.

"No, its okay, go ahead."

"Okay. This information is privileged and shared under NASA's general medical privacy rules. It can be used for the mission, but not repeated. I would prefer you not repeat it to NASA. I don't want to go through a review no matter how well intended, as it would be pointless. If you feel you must report it, well, like Mark said, they can fire us and send us home I guess.

You know Mark and I met in Costa Rica when he was in the Peace Corps. I was working with DWB doing hurricane relief when they brought Mark in with Dengue fever. Its a viral infection spread by mosquitos. The first case is like the worst flu you ever had but generally isn't fatal. The second almost always is so once... well, Mark was going to be shipped. We spent a lot of time together and I noticed Mark had some unexplained mood swings, nothing sinister, he never got angry about anything, well you know Mark. Most of the time he was quite happy, no matter how sick he was. Other times, sullen, for no reason. On a hunch I checked his blood work and found a low LAC count. That's not something a doctor in a tropic medivac center looks for except to confirm the diagnosis of what they already believed, in Mark's case, in lay terms, depression.

Now, lay people still associate depression with being sad all the time, and that can be the case but usually isn't. In most cases you swing like a pendulum between elation and sullen. Mark's was pretty mild, and I prescribed bupropion hydrochloride which works great, has no real side effects and is almost 100% effective. It was for Mark.

Mark and I hit it off, we never really fell in "love" love down there, but we were close, not seeing anyone else, and enjoyed our time together. I really should have referred him to another doctor, but it was all under control. Even when we fell for each other and decided to both go to Houston to apply, well, we were really close then obviously, but Mark's depression was just completely gone, or managed very well."

"Until Ares III. You should have told us, me and Chris anyway. If it's under control, they probably would not have scrubbed you." Lewis said.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry I... I was just ashamed I guess." Mark cried.

"Society's treatment of depression and related illnesses can cause shame, and it is shame for no reason. Mark has an electrolytic imbalance in his brain that screws with serotonin production. Nothing more, nothing less and easily treatable. It wasn't Ares III that made it become a problem for him. I wrote Mark a script for enough of his meds, its one pill a day so I wrote two year's worth at one of the hospitals I attend at, checked it out to clinic, and he took it with him. No problems. Until Mr. Genius here goes to planet leaving most of his script on the Hermes. He wasn't supposed to be here that long and while you are treated, it really does seem like it's under control. So, he rationed as well as he could, until he ran out."

"About the time Beth called." Lewis said.

"No, about a month before then. That was the first manifestation, I think. I don't know who Beth is really other than the sysop, I mean, who he is to Mark, but he decided he was going to die here and wanted Beth to know she was free, and he wanted her cared for. Maybe these feelings for her are delusional on his part, as it gets more severe it can..."

"No. That's real. We'll talk about it later, please continue."

"Oh, well that's good news medically." Dana replied.

"Okay, so cut to the chase, what can we do about it?" Mindy asked.

"Oh simple, we start a new regime. I sort of suspected Mark might run out and bupropion hydrochloride is useful for just general depression like one might expect on an extended mission, as opposed to clinical like Mark has, so I had the NASA med group load up on it. I've got enough to last all of us until we get back to earth if need be. So, tomorrow Mark starts over and for the foreseeable future I monitor him, In a few days he should be fine. But tonight, well, we are going to hang out with him. Can we move movie night to Tuesday?"

"Wait, why not start now, and what is movie... well I can figure what movie night is, why does that matter?"

"Well Mr. Genius drank about three of those beers and treatment starts with fairly large doses, more than I would suggest is healthy with alcohol, which is itself a depressant. And we use the command data screen for movies as it is the biggest and highest res in the ship. So, we can all hang out here. If that's okay. I think having company is the best solution until the morning."

"Commander Park, it's your ship, your call on movie night. I didn't even know it was Tuesday. I won't report anything unless treatment doesn't work, because... well... fuck NASA and fuck Mars! I'm about damn sick of it's shit! Mark, my mother suffered with depression for years so I... well I understand. I need to know, is there anything else you haven't told me?"

"No, I mean, not that I know of. I'm so sorry Missy... I..."

"It's okay, we'll get through it. You're still my road warrior." She said as she sat beside him and pulled his head to her shoulder so he could cry his eyes out.

Dana and Mindy went to retrieve Anna, blankets, snacks and drinks. Their entertainment files were already on the mainframe. While on the lower level Mindy looked to Dana and asked.

"Road warrior? What kind of sick games did they play anyway?"

"Well, its Mark so, uh, you know." Dana replied with a grin.

It took a while for Mark to fully get back, but within a week his obvious mood swings were gone, and he was assisting setting up the botany hab. He had little contact outside the crew and his parents, usually only listening to the botanists and engineers on earth giving instructions which he took with a grain of salt. He was after all, as he regularly told anyone that would listen, the "greatest botanist in the world." When he finally did return to public life though it was in a big way.

While on Earth the Hermes crew had an opportunity to spend time with their families and visit a few schools and children's hospitals. One of the more whimsical opportunities came from a sportswear company, following a visit to St Judes in Memphis, asking that they pose in the company's work out briefs and tees, and their considerable fees would be matched by the company to St Judes. All agreed except Beth, who although considered with Watney to be the sex symbols of the crew, was basically a shy introvert. A compromise was reached and just after they left the company ran the ad on multiple sites, feed services and networks as well in print where ever it could.

The heading of the ad said "We asked the Ares III to show us what they wore under their space suits!" with the company logo beside it and the photo showed the very buff Rick, Chris and Alex each grinning ear to ear in the company's boxer briefs and tight tees, and each holding white board signs that collectively read "We said yes, but just to raise money for St Judes." Beth had been right about making sure Annie got some pictures of Alex in something tight. All looked buff as all hell, but Alex had a special ability to fill out the briefs.

Beside them in the photo was a grinning, blushing, Beth in a conservative knee length sun dress looking as cute as a button, holding a white board that said "Nope, but please help save lives. Give to St Judes" and gave the web address.

The ad was quite popular and over the next week many memes were born, some outstandingly profane, but a lot of money was donated.

The following week NASA received a picture from Victoria One with Anna, Dana and Mindy, all in their NASA jump suits holding a banner that said "We're with you Dr Johannsen. Nope, but please give!" and again citing the web address. It wasn't a great picture as it was shot as a lark, but the message was clear.

This too was published, Annie made sure of it and was itself quite popular and gained a lot of media brownie points. The popularity stirred Annie to build on it, so after several requests, with all her suggestions rejected, she received a photo of Missy Lewis, in her EVA, with the helmet off, holding a sign that said "No! Are you crazy? But please give!" and again cited the address.

Mark being the only hold out became Annie's full-time target and the chunk of public that was following the trend wondered what would come next. Most thought NASA had saved the best for last, but Mark was still sullen and withdrawn although very much on the mend. Finally, after much cajoling, whining and begging, he agreed to a photo, on his terms. At his bunk he put on clean boxers, rolled them up and down so they could not be seen behind the sign that read "I go commando! Please support children's cancer research at St Jude's" and gave the address. He was grinning like a fool and buff like a sculpture of a Greek god.

Annie had to debate whether to release it or keep it for herself.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 10**

Beth felt pretty good about herself on her return to Hermes. She had taken responsibility for Mark's personal gear, taken it from the ship, kept it safely at home, and returned it to the ship, placing it back on his bunk. Not once did she look through it.

A folder, sealed by Velcro and an elastic string, was on Mark's bunk, held in place with a bit of tape, with a note from the refurb crew. "Dr Watney, we found this on your shelf and didn't want it vented into space. All still here, good luck and come home safe!"

A glance wouldn't hurt, maybe it wasn't even Mark's, she really should confirm that it was. Just a quick peek. It appeared to be printed photos, of Mark and friends, his parents, Mark and his parents, a few shots of him and the crew, then a few of him and some girl in a black dress. They had smiles and drinks in their hands and it looked recent, in the sense of that was how Mark looked when the Hermes first shipped with Ares III. She looked familiar, but she couldn't place her. Sort of Asian maybe, but not really. Long dark hair, thin, not really model beautiful, but certainly fortunate in the looks department. Her eyes were almost mesmerizing. Certainly they were her most easily noted feature. Oh well, probably some girl he met before he met Beth. Nothing to be concerned about, Mark and she had committed to talking about their future, so it wasn't like he would be having that conversation with anyone else. Plus, Beth knew that she, with Irene's help, had her emotions under control. Still, the girl looked familiar. Several weeks later she would still think about that girl, trying to figure out who she was, but just could not place her.

Over a month later and nearly 300 million miles away, the Orion III crew was waking up. All had stayed up half the night, Mark had hardly slept at all. He had finally calmed down but was still distraught and overly emotional at everything. A sense of doom pervaded him, and he knew he would die on Mars. He had known that for months and the only reason he fought it was for Missy. She should live even if he couldn't. Now they had reached relative safety and he knew Missy would make it, but he would probably die there. Mark had made his peace with that and had left his final testament in his work already. If Mars had to kill him, he was ready. He would not go down without a fight, he had come to hate Mars, but deep down knew he was outmatched.

The entire crew had slept piled up on the cot in the command room and none had slept comfortably. The cot was the largest on the ship but still too small for five. Each had taken turns taking care of Mark, holding him and assuring him he was going to be alright. When he eventually fell asleep it was from emotional as much as physical exhaustion.

Mindy woke first and hit the shower. Mark woke next as he slept fitfully anyway. Dana woke with him.

"Come on, let's get you fixed up Mark" she smiled, and Mark didn't argue. He was tired of living like he knew he was going to die. Even if he did know he was going to die. Mars had passed his death sentence, execution had been withheld, but it would come. He knew it would.

At the med station, which was just beside the showers and between the dining/meeting table and the EVA suit storage, Dana unlocked the cabinet with her thumbprint, reached onto a shelf and pulled out a large medicinal bottle.

"Mark, normally you take three for three days, then one per morning and evening for a week, then one per day, but to help you get right faster we are going to do three in suppository form for quicker absorption."

"Huh?"

"No, just fucking with you. Take these. There is water over there or red drink in the fridge."

"Red drink?"

"It's what we call it. Its red. You drink it. We have coffee too, but it comes out pretty hot and you probably want it to cool a bit before you drink it."

"Oh, that sports stuff? Yeah, I don't know what it is supposed to be called either. Haven't had it in ages. We ran out a month ago at least."

"One red drink coming up, do you want yellow, green, orange or traditional red?"

"I have a choice! I'm in heaven!"

"Oh! Just for you Mark, the elusive blue red drink!" Dana smiled.

"Ambrosia!"

"Hey guys, good morning." Mindy said she stepped from behind the privacy screen with her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing a jump suit with wet spots on it from having to put it on before fully dry.

"Oh, you didn't have to put on clothes for us Mindy" Dana grinned.

"Hush. Mark is here. No more naked Wednesdays."

"Oh, don't stop on my account Commander." Mark said before snickering.

That he could crack a joke, even a bad one, was a good omen for Dana, even though the meds would not take effect for days. It merely meant he was beginning an upswing, which was expected since he had gotten a decent number of calories, was in apparently a safe place and had gotten at least some rest.

"Hush. I'm just fucking with you Watney."

"I thought Commander Lewis said..."

"Shut up Dana, not appropriate." Mindy smiled as she unwrapped the towel from her head and began scrunching her hair dry.

"Hey, I didn't think to mention it Mindy, but I like the short hair, and the blonde thingy you got going on." Mark said in an effort to change the subject before it got weirder.

Mindy sat opposite Dana and sighed.

"I couldn't keep it long and wear an EVA suit, and NASA hates long hair. I'll be honest Mark, I cried when I got it cut. The blonde thingy as you so artfully word it is a comb in highlight treatment as we can't bleach or dye in space. Its curled up because I don't have a straightening iron. Honestly the worst part of space flight is the absence of product."

"It looks good. Different, but good. She used to have long, straight almost black hair. It was beautiful but, I don't know, I sort of like this." Mark said.

"Thanks. Last night I wasn't sure you recognized me at first."

"No. Your eyes. I would know you anywhere. So, what's on the schedule today?"

"For you? Nothing. If you're nice we might give you a tour of Orion. You slept upstairs, this is downstairs, and below us is storage and mechanical. Below that is engines and Mars. Tour's over. Same for Commander Lewis, rest. You are both on rest until further notice, expect to be for three or four days. Seriously Mark, I'm shutting everyone down, all five of us. The flight exhausted us too. Your trip wore you guys out plus all you did before that. Commander Lewis and Mindy may be in charge, but I'm still the med officer and I say after all that everyone needs some down time and rest. Is there anything else in the rover that we need to bring in?"

"Well, we should pump the water into the Orion then bury the RTG. Everything else can wait I think, might ask Mis... uh, Commander Lewis."

"We're in down time right now if I heard correctly Mark," Missy said as she and then Anna came down from the command compartment.

"So?" Dana asked.

"When we are off duty, we use first names. We should probably bring in the food, samples and laundry." Missy smiled. She had thought about it and given the group's need to bond she thought it would be a good idea to continue as long as discipline didn't get too sloppy. For now anyway. Only Anna was military so it would be confusing to inflict on them too fast anyway and she had picked up last night that Mindy had never used titles. "Besides, everyone here has a title now and"

"I don't have a title." Anna smiled.

"Hmmm, we'll get you one. That's my job for the day. Wait, I thought you were a Major in the Air Force" Missy replied."

"I am, I wanted a NASA title so I could be in the cool kids club." Anna replied.

"Back up. You have an RTG in the rover? Why in the name of all that is holy would you do that?" Mindy asked.

"Heat. Running the heater would suck up half our power so if we did, we would still be on the road. Dirt path. Traveling across desolation. Whatever." Mark said.

"But, why did you let him do that?" Mindy asked.

"What? It was her idea." Mark answered.

"What is an RTG?" Dana asked.

"Radioactive box of death." Missy answered. "Do you have coffee here?"

"Yes!" Dana answered, "the food service units are old school and it is instant, and you have to use a drink decanter, but yes. One scoop or two?"

Dana opened a container of instant coffee and added two scoops to the container as Missy held up two fingers in answer.

"Anyway, for all its shortcomings as a box o' instant death, the RTG kept it toasty warm in the rover. Not as warm as it is in here, what's up with that?" Mark asked.

It really wasn't overly warm in the Orion, but it was a dry 74 degrees, and Mark usually had his air on 70. Or 68. Or "Meat locker" if the setting was available.

"Oh, Commander Lewis, we need to have a brief on duty discussion if that's alright."

"Okay Commander Park. What's up?"

"Well, on the way here we had a lot of time to think and we developed a few ship wide rules in addition to the standard ones. These are specific to Orion III due to its physical layout and operating parameters. I'd like to review that with you. We felt it would make for an efficient and happy crew. If you approve, we would like to leave them in effect. We can go over them all later, but we need to get the most important one out of the way."

"Which is?"

"Dr Watney is never to be told where the internal thermostat is, or how to operate it." Anna smiled.

"Approved. Save the less important ones for later Mindy?"

"Yes. Thanks. I thought we should get that one out of the way since it is clearly mission critical."

"I agree. You know, maybe it's because we haven't had any in ages, but for NASA this coffee doesn't totally suck." Missy smiled.

"It's not as bad as the tar in the break room at Satcom, but it's not a cappuccino from that place outside the gift shop either." Mindy said.

"Oh gifts! That reminds me!" Mark said as he stood and walked across the room to his EVA suit. He unzipped the front right pouch and pulled a sample bag from it, then went to the dispenser and poured some hot water in the bag while the rest of the crew stared. Dana held a hand up for silence as this was something important to Mark and to be snarky might be particularly harmful given his mental state. Though he seemed happy that morning, it was probably just a rebound from a low point and he would be switching to a more manic phase until meds got him balanced.

Mark poured the water out into the recycling drain, then laid a towel on the table, before pouring out five truly beautiful stones onto it.

"What are..."

"Opals. Hydrated silica. They're beautiful Mark, why" Missy asked.

"I wanted to thank you guys somehow and Mars doesn't have any gift shops. I got one for Beth too. Found them yesterday when I was dropping the panels. I... thought they were pretty, they are everywhere out there around the crater. I want to find a few for Alex and Rick's wives and kids too."

"Mark... just..." Mindy tried to speak but was at a loss for words as she hugged him.

"Do we have to turn them over to NASA though?" Dana asked.

"I'm the geologist and I'm keeping mine. Forever. Thanks Mark." Missy answered as she too gently embraced him.

"Uh, I'm kind of tired, I think I will go back to sleep now. Unless you need me to"

"You're off work today. We're supposed to do the conference, but I think we are having video trouble aren't we Mindy? We can just type back answers."

"Yes, the flux capacitor on the oscillation overthruster is acting up. I should have it fixed tomorrow. Or the next day." Mindy smiled.

Mark turned and grinned at the "oscillation overthruster" reference.

"Not my planet pizza girl!"

"You've seen 'Buckaroo Banzai'! You are truly a cultured polymath of astonishing proportions Dr Watney,and speaking of pizza there are a few slices left." Mindy replied.

"There are? Nap time can wait, I'm on it. Blue red drink and cold pizza for breakfast. Is this heaven?" Mark replied.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 11**

Mindy had worked with Dana and Anna on EVA training all along the flight, however neither could certify her. It was felt this wouldn't matter as formality had been generally cast aside for this mission, but Lewis pointed out that formality meant staying alive. Without certification, she was not free to walk about unattended on Mars or do any space walks if needed. Mindy didn't mind not doing space walks as she tended to vomit too much, but to travel this far in an oversized tin can and then spend the duration of her stay never setting foot on the planet was just too terrible of an existence to imagine. She needed to get outside, even if it were in an EVA suit. So although Dr Abernathy had ordered a few days' rest, Missy and Mindy worked on training and testing during that time, often with Mark assisting as most of the time he was able to. All slept a lot, and the second day after the transfer of command they finally answered the prefab questions on camera. It probably would have been put off again except Annie managed to get Mitch's help.

"You see this?" Mindy asked Missy.

"That from the dump?"

"Yeah, it's a press release saying that Dana has us under rest and stand down so that we can recover from our trips and NASA is restricting direct communication with Hermes for the time being as a result."

"What?!" Mark nearly screamed.

"Sounds like Annie wants her presser."

"Damn. I was really looking forward to not doing that again today." Missy replied.

It wasn't that the crew didn't enjoy doing pressers, it was that they had exhaustion from travel, worries about Mark's mental wellbeing, and cabin fever. Dana and Anne had exited the Orion III to secure the ground bracing, but that had taken a half hour, and repair the short-range antenna, which just had to be snapped back into place and reconnected as it had been dislocated and disconnected from the acceleration when they launched. Mindy was sick of being on the Orion III. Dana and Anne were too, but at least they had their Mars numbers now, 19 and 20. Mindy wanted to be 21 and wanted it as soon as possible.

Commander Lewis emceed the presser with herself and the crew crunched in around the living area table. Mindy had set up the camera and put microphones on everyone, then sat between Missy and Mark with the camera remote in her hand. Once she turned it on, Lewis made brief introduction of everyone, bragging about all her crew had succeeded at so far, and especially bragging on Mark for all the work he did saving both their lives. She gushed thanks to Mindy, Anna and Dana for relieving them, as well as the Ares III crew for returning for them.

Then they went through the deck of questions NASA had gathered for them to answer, most being softballs, but a few being simple to answer technical questions about equipment and the research they would be doing. Finally, the one all expected came up, asking Mark how it felt to be on Mars with an otherwise all female crew. As it was directed at him, he got the first shot at answering it.

"I'm not. I'm on Mars with four outstanding and professional scientists-explorers who saved my life. Commanders Lewis and Park, Major Washburn and Dr Abernathy, they are my heroes and I owe them a debt greater than I can ever repay. Each is a great person, researcher and astronaut and I owe them everything. If we were all male, or any mix of the sexes, my answer would be the same and no one would ask, so no one should ask now. It makes no difference to any of us. We are all great friends, but we are dedicated to our work here, and our schedule doesn't allow time for fraternization of the sort your question suggests."

"I'm not sure they were suggesting anything Mark but I'm sure we all agree with you..." Mindy started to add before Watney interrupted.

"Besides, they are all really hot and can all do better than me anyway." He frowned, trying, and failing, to be funny. He just came across as weird.

Lewis decided to edit out everything after Mark's first answer and before any more talk of romance was discussed, closed the presser out with a quick request for thoughts and prayers, and an admonition for students to work hard in school and pursue scientific, engineering and technical fields.

One of the kids that saw the edited video was Kalani Akina, a girl in the 9th grade in Hawaii where her parents worked for the university. Kalani didn't want to see it, her mother made her watch it after school. Kalani's father was an astronomer at the Mt Kea observatory and had pushed her hard in science and math. Every after-school activity was geared around STEM subjects. Kalani was not surprisingly the only teen she knew with a ham radio license, that she neither used nor wanted. She had pretty much just decided to be a stripper instead of going to college. Kay-Kay, as her friends called her, hated school, science and math, but that was about to change. A little.

Her school's science fair was coming up and her folks were pushing her hard to enter. Her grades were good, but her interest was low. None of her friends had to do that shit and she didn't want to either. She decided to post some pictures from the Ares III mission, since that was all her parents ever talked about, write some gibberish about exploring Mars, put it all on the display board her mother had bought from the local office supply and call it a day. The only reason she was going to that effort was to get her parents off her ass.

As her father's work was related to space the family computer had a link saved to all the satellite photos published from Mars, not just the ones the media ran, so Kay-Kay figured to find some fresh material there. She hoped to even find some of the rover on its way to Ares IV since the news tended to use the same one over and over again. She wanted to start with an overview shot of Ares III, but not the one she had seen on the news repeatedly. It had been used by the media for months but as the MAV was still there it was clear that it had been taken before Lewis and Watney were stranded. Kay-Kay didn't realize that the photos were published by NASA in chronological order as they were taken, so the first one she found useful was a large over view of the site, approximately a half kilometer wide north to south and east to west taken on pass over just a few days before. Lewis and Watney had been gone for months and were already at Ares IV when it was taken.

"Huh. That's interesting" Kay-Kay thought as she rotated the picture 90 degrees. "Hey dad! Can you take a look at this?"

"What ya got?"

"Something for the science fair, I think. Do you know anything about the Ares III landing site?"

"Well, there are closer pictures of the habitat, here, let me show you" he father said as he reached for the keyboard.

"No no! This is the one I want, I wondered if you knew what these areas are." Kay-Kay asked as she pointed to the screen.

"Oh, that... didn't you go over this in school? They took samples from those areas. Four quadrants blocked off in squares around the habitat, then sampled in rows. Each sample can be placed in the exact right spot on the map that way. Looks like in some places they didn't put the dirt back in the holes. Got lazy I guess, not that I blame them, doesn't make any difference really and"

"I think those are rocks, let me zoom in."

"Oh, yeah. Well I really don't blame them now. Even in reduced gravity moving that many rocks would take a month I bet. So, you want to do your project on Ares III? You should talk about the geography of"

"No, I got it. Is Office Staples still open?"

"Uh, its only about seven, I guess, why?"

"I need a couple of those display boards" Kay-Kay replied as she scanned the picture with her eyes over and over.

"I thought your mother got"

"I need a couple more. Could you get them for me please? Oh, and some glossy photo paper? Not the real glossy kind, just kind of shiny and some paste?"

"You mean matte finish, sure. When is it due?"

"Tomorrow." She didn't even look up.

"And you are just starting? What have we said about planning Kay, you know you can't just"

"I didn't have the idea until just now. Please? I think you'll like it" she replied, finally facing her father before returning to stare at the photo.

Despite being irate Professor Akina was a loving father and made the trip to pick up the materials. It wasn't the first time he went to find materials at the last minute for a school project. He knew his daughter was smart with a generous IQ, but she had trouble finding anything that interested her. Her insistence on always wearing black was beginning to look less like a phase and had moved into the category of irritating, but her grades were solid, so hopefully her mother was right that this would pass with time. Dr Akina simply hated the music his daughter had been listening to for the last year or so and wished she would go out of her way to read something other than Poe and weird anime comics.

Kay-Kay worked all night, or most of it, and in the morning her mother and father were quite proud of their daughter's research, but her presentation looked, well, bad. Like a school project slapped together overnight at the last minute.

Her father made her prove her thesis by showing him the results and methods she used on line, and he was simply dumbfounded by what his daughter had found, especially when a search on the net revealed she was apparently the only person in the world to have noticed it. Even if it didn't check out, and Dr Akira assumed it would not, it was still an interesting science project and was well documented.

The display boards were carefully folded up and put in storage area at the back of the family's SUV and once at school, mom and dad helped Kay-Kay carry them to the gym where the school fair was to be set up. That her parents were actually in her school during normal hours was even more humiliating than PTA night which they made her attend. At least at those meetings her few friends were not there.

Her folks left but would return in the afternoon when awards were presented. The judging took place during the morning while the kids were in class and groups were called out of class to do their presentations to the judges. Kay-Kay didn't get her lunch at 11, because she was called out at 10:30 for her five minute presentation and had a group of five local scientists bombarding her with questions for the next hour while she tried to answer them. She was dressed in her usual all black attire, looking like a funeral director on casual day, and half way through it began eating her sandwich because she was starving. The goth child drinking from a juice box made it all the more surreal to the people watching the scene. The scientist-judges didn't seem to care about the other displays very much or that hers looked to have been slapped together overnight at the very last minute.

She did the best she could, but hated speaking and took offense easily as she showed her research over and over to their doubt and disbelief. One had a laptop and made her pull up the photos she worked with on the NASA web site to prove she had not doctored them.

"Are you sure you, uh, translated it correctly?"

"Transcribed, and yes. I have an amateur radio license and had to learn it, well, I didn't have to, its not required anymore, but dad made me anyway. I double and triple checked. It's accurate" Kay-Kay replied.

"Well Miss Akina, you have my vote" a large Asian man, called Dr Ng, with a gravelly voice said as he stooped down and offered her his handshake. As she reluctantly took it he added, "My brother Bruce is the chief engineer at JPL. I need to call him and send him a photo of your project if that's okay. I wish I could see the look on the people's faces in Houston when he tells them that a 15 year-old"

"I'm 14."

"When he tells them that a very bright, creative and incredibly observant 14 year-old found something that they all missed. Great work Miss Akina, you have a bright future."

"Do you know what it means?" She asked Dr Ng. Of all the judges he was the nicest and didn't seem to doubt that her project was true. It was clearly a message, and a sad one, but there was no punctuation, so it was difficult to discern its purpose. It was pretty cool to Kay-Kay anyway.

"Akina, I have no idea. But it's important, you found it first, and first is forever in this business."

This made Kay-Kay swell with pride, even though she still wasn't sure what all the hubbub was about. The best part was that her bitch science teacher heard the whole conversation and was left speechless as her pets' projects about pineapple growth and the importance of eating enough bananas were ignored.

The moment passed quick as she still hated school, but the moment would return soon enough. Science wasn't so bad now. 


	12. Chapter 12

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 12**

"Watney, this is Lewis. Everything is at the airlock. We are going to bury the RTG and return. Will message if problems. None expected, rover seems to be fine, except some fool ripped the back seats out of it."

"Copy. Lewis, Abernathy and Washburn outbound on rover. See ya soon commander, drive safe and don't put a scratch on my ride. I'll notice if you do. Over."

"Copy that. We will get it washed and waxed while we are out. Rover One, out."

Mark took his head set off, switched the com speaker on, sat down and watched the rover as it drove away. It would never be out of sight, it was only going four kilometers and if it broke down his fellow astronauts could walk back in a few minutes. All were happy to get out and do something, but he and Mindy were still in Orion III. Watney because Dana had not cleared him for duty yet, though tomorrow would be the fifth day since their arrival, so he expected to be, and Mindy as she was technically not cleared for EVA yet. She was ready, as ready as anyone could be, but Missy wanted her to have an experienced partner her first few trips out, and Missy was busy watching out for her doctor and pilot. Mindy would have to wait until Watney could be partner to her. Although the doctor and pilot were both certified by NASA, Lewis and Watney each had more EVA time than all of NASA combined probably and she treated all others like they were complete n00bz until she was satisfied they knew what they were doing.

As he sat on his bunk watching the rover through the observation port and staring at the beautiful and ugly desolation that was Mars, Mindy came up the steps to join him. The steps were almost a ladder set vertically and it folded into a wall when Orion III was flying, but was easy enough to climb.

"Hey, can I join you?" she asked.

"Sure, you bored too?"

"Yeah. Its beautiful isn't it? Our first full day here I sat here most of the day, watching for you to come. It was almost nightfall when you did."

"After you have been here a year its ugly. Trust me on this. But ya know, everywhere between Ares III and here Missy and I were the first to see it. Kinda amazing when you think about it."

"Well, Anna was the first to see here, Dana and I were in our seats, silently screaming in our heads, hoping and praying we wouldn't die." Mindy smiled.

"Ha! Sounds like a ride in an MDV. I hated that. Just, pure unadulterated hated it."

"Every time the landing thrusters kicked in I thought the ship was exploding. Mark, can we talk for a second?"

"We are talking Mindy."

"Uh, right, I meant about us. Look, I know before isolation we said we would talk when you got back, but a lot has changed. I really, well, I don't know how you feel and I know with the depression and all you might not feel anything but, well, we're going to be together for the next year either here or on the Hermes and, uh, do you still want to have that talk when we get back? I mean, we didn't talk for a long-time and... If not, I understand, I'm not some school girl with a crush hoping to get 'shipped' as they used to say but"

"Mindy, every day on the flight to Mars, and every day with the crew at Ares III, and every day on the drive to here, and for the last five days... thinking of you has kept me alive. I'm looking forward to that talk and hoping against hope that you still had something in your heart for me. We didn't talk because, uh, other than your phone number and address, I had no way to reach you, turns out there is no 'Department of Hipsters' and I had no phone, and, well, our mail service here is sort of slow. I think the postman drinks. Well, look, I adore Missy, and respect her. She says no romance and I'm going to follow that order."

"I told you I worked at Satcom."

"Department of Hipsters. I didn't know about Satcom until Missy told me the morning before we arrived, or, well, I guess, uh... Look. Yes, when we get home I am very much looking forward to that talk, if you are. If you've moved on well"

"Hush" Mindy interrupted as her eyes filled with tears. "I... uh, me too. Me too."

Mindy couldn't help herself any more than Mark could. They turned to face each other and kissed. It was like sugar melting in their mouths and their arms gently embraced each other. They kissed too long, and finally both broke it off, knowing they could not and would not go further.

As they separated Mindy looked at Mark's smile, his eyes and his cute little nose. Beside her was the Mark she remembered.

"There you are" She whispered.

"There you are." Teddy Sanders said as Annie Montrose entered the conference room a few minutes late.

"Sorry, I've been dealing with a shit storm of calls about whether a high school girl in Hawaii noticed messages in Morse code around the Ares III hab that NASA somehow didn't notice in the last 4 or 5 months."

"What have you told them?"

"That we would have an announcement shortly. Now, is it true and how in the fuck did we miss it?"

"You're such a delicate flower Annie."

"Stuff it Mitch."

"We missed it because the techs checking to see if the sample areas are properly surveyed and dug were not looking for secret messages from a guy saying his good byes to the universe. Why would we?" Venkat answered.

"So that's all true? What does it say?" Annie demanded.

"It says a lot of things, in two to three foot-high piles of rocks. Mark must have worked on it for a month." Kapoor answered as he slid a transcription to Annie.

"Oh lord. Is this all?"

"It's all the media has so far. I have Rachel Jameson in Satcom checking every stop they made on their trek for more. She has found a few,but not many so far. They are very small as far as the size of the rock piles go, we think he was working in a hurry when traveling. The photos have been public, some of them for months, others for weeks. It's only a matter of time."

"What do those say?"

"Oh, actually they are less... noir? My favorite is the longest one she has found so far; 'Still on Mars, that sux.' 'Sucks' is spelled with an 'x', I guess because it was fewer rocks to stack."

"Did anyone authorize this?" Annie asked as a stress headache began to kick in.

"No, but no one specifically banned it either I suppose. So how do we handle it?"

"Not sure, can I get a secure line to Watney and Lewis? We can't have them getting asked about it by media at the next presser until we get the story straight, until you showed me this, CNN knew more about it than I did." Annie asked.

"And what do we do about Watney?" Venkat asked.

"Not much, it's not like we can fire him and send him home is it? He is alive and already under a doctor's care so there really isn't anything more we can do. Tell him to stop?" Mitch pointed out.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Annie said.

Back on Orion III the crew was in and unsuited, and the samples were stored. This took a significant amount of time as it included all the samples from the Ares III site, as well as those Lewis and Watney had picked up on their way. Missy was feeling the need for a shower after a day of burying plutonium and hauling rocks in, but the message traffic alert came before she could.

Checking her tablet Missy saw the message was coming from Houston on her personal channel, and assumed it was Bob, which was disappointing as she had already nixed any sexual fraternization and not hearing from him in a while meant that he would piss her off more than enough to merit a grudge f*ck.

"Guys figure out dinner, I'm going to take this in the com" she said as she ascended the steps.

A few minutes later Mark had just sat down with his crew mates for a dinner of re-hydrated pepper steak and rice, which may have had parts that came from some sort of bovine, but no one could be certain, with an excellent chilled purple red drink, when he heard Missy call.

"Watney! Get your ass up here! Now!"

Based on her tone, Mark didn't think this was for a grudge f ck.

Lewis didn't sound very happy with him. 


	13. Chapter 13

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 13**

 **Hey! Give me some feedback. Love it, hate it? Let me know.**

"Did you write a suicide note at Ares III?" Commander Lewis demanded.

"What? No, of course not!"

"Oh? So, the wind just piled up rocks in Morse code then?"

"Huh? No, I, it's not a suicide note. Geez where did you get that idea?" Mark asked.

"Well that's apparently what half the world thinks it is, a suicide note, from a crazy man no less, and the other half hasn't heard about it yet as it is still night time for them! What the fuck were you thinking?"

"What makes you think it's a suicide note?"

"Oh I don't know, let's see; _'I know I will die on Mars but I am doing something important that I love Ive seen things others can only dream of Lewis Rick Chris Beth Alex not their fault best crew ever best friends ever I have flown in great company that I love and admire mom dad I miss you best parents ever Mindy Anna Dana we came in peace we came for all mankind we were proud to represent you'_... Does that sound like a suicide note to you Mark? Because it does to everyone else! What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Well, when you read it like that... geez, that is depressing, but I did that over like a month and a half. I wrote it a word or two at a time, I just had some stuff to say in case, you know, and I thought it might be cool for every one's names to be there forever and... Why are you bringing this up now?"

"What do you mean why am I bringing this up now?" Missy stared as Dana came up the stairs and into the com as she, and everyone else, had overheard the gist of the conversation. Privacy didn't really exist in a space capsule, especially when the CO was pissed, and if Mark had entertained suicidal thoughts Dana's job just became far more intense.

"I mean, I did that months ago, while I was making water in rover two. I needed something to do while it was, you know, exploding."

"That's what you were doing instead of helping me with the samples?"

"No, no, that's what I was doing while I was helping you with samples. I just piled up rocks as I went along getting samples. Geez, if you were going to chew me out over it why wait until today?"

"Uh, Mark, no one knew about it until today. NASA never noticed it, a girl doing her Science Fair project figured it out from the public photos. A local TV affiliate covered her Science Fair as a human-interest story and now every bit of media in America is crawling up NASA's ass to find out about it. Annie Montrose is contacting you in a few minutes along with Irene the shrink to figure out what to do about it and how suicidal you are. Do you have any idea how big of a cluster fuck this is?"

"Oh. Just now? You mean they didn't see it... wow. What the hell were they paying attention to? How did you not notice? It's not like I was hiding anything, it's piles of rocks, directly under a dozen satellite paths, and I was always in sight of you... total props to the girl though, someone should congratulate her" Mark replied.

"Well she won the fucking Science Fair Watney, and you got egg all over NASA's face! Great job! Way to go! Oh, and I was probably busy doing my fucking job! Now sit down here and talk to Annie and Irene. Straighten this out Watney. I mean it." Lewis commanded. "And don't think I'm not pissed that you used my last name that I got from my asshat husband and everybody else's first. That's for another time."

"Uh, yeah, sure. And I used your last name because it would have taken a metric shit ton of rocks to spell 'Commander Lewis' and I wasn't about to call you 'Missy' and make NASA ask why I was calling you 'Missy'. Oh, and before you ask why I didn't use everyone else's last name it's because it would have taken me a week to haul two more metric shit tons of rocks to spell 'Martinez' and 'Johannsen'. Hey, did they find the ones I left on the way over here?"

"Oh dear god Watney, what do they say?" Lewis asked as she rubbed her temples.

"Uh... 'Fuck Mars' and 'I'm still on Mars. Damn it to hell' and 'Mars sucks' and"

"Did you put anything about us or me?" Lewis stared.

"Uh, no, nothing like that. I did refer to you a couple times though."

"Watney" Lewis said, and Dana could have sworn she saw steam coming out her ears.

"Uh, just that you were a great commander. I said, 'Lewis best com ever' That was the day the poop bucket split and you made me empty it. I had a bit more time than usual. I was feeling sarcastic I guess."

"Oh, okay, well that's... Sarcasm!?" Missy nearly shouted.

"And 'Lewis is a back seat driver' and 'Disco sucks'."

"Disco sucks? You wrote that forever on the face of Mars? Not something meaningful, not 'Change is the only constant" or "Worry is interest on a debt not owed' or something about the penalty for not adapting... no, you took the time to haul a bunch of rocks just to say 'Disco sucks'."

"Yeah, I guess, I guess I did. That makes it sound really OCD though, I was just trying to be funny, I figured Satcom had picked up on all that a long time ago. Geez. What were they looking at?"

"They were probably busy making sure you didn't blow us up. Now you're the engineer, fix this."

"Uh, okay so" Mark stammered just as the message from Annie and Irene came in.

"Dana, you might be needed to convince Houston that Mark isn't crazy."

"So, lie to them?" Dana smirked, but Missy wasn't in the mood for humor.

"Whatever it takes."

Irene and Annie's message was a good five minutes long and consisted of equal parts Irene asking "Mark are you okay, tell me how you feel, what were you feeling" and Annie asking "What were you thinking, have you lost your damn mind?"

By the end of it a basic strategy for a reply was developed.

"No, I haven't lost my mind. I wrote that stuff over a month or two, even longer for some parts of it, and yeah, at one point I thought I would die on Mars. So did everyone else. And I still might. But once a relief plan was developed, really, I just wanted to give something back to the crews and immortalize them and my parents, I thought they deserved it. How is it no one noticed until now? Oh, and hey! The girl that found it? Full marks to her! What a bright kid, somebody should recruit her for NASA. Put her in Satcom. Dr Abernathy is taking good care of all of us and the mood around here is much brighter than it was at Ares III when we thought we were going to die."

Dana took over and expressed much the same adding that Mark was neither suicidal or crazy, just a guy with a dark sense of humor and very little filter. They were working on skills to cope with the stress and Mark was, well, have you ever met Mark Watney?" She asked.

Between the four a plan was developed over the next hour and a half's three messages, and an hour or so later Mark received a script to read on camera for the easier half of his part. For the other half, Mindy finally got her EVA and became Mars number 21. Everyone was needed to pitch in, and it took a couple hours of work. To a person all were irritated at Mark for the extra work, but in the end not so much as they giggled at the whimsey of it all.

Annie made a brief statement to the press saying that NASA was aware of the situation and that medical staff both on Victoria One and in Houston were convinced Dr Watney was mentally stable and was never suicidal, and pointed out that at the time some of the message was created most of the people on two planets assumed he would die on Mars. A longer press conference, which would include a promised message from Dr Watney, would be held the next day.

Then the travel office was contacted to arrange three tickets from Honolulu to Houston.

Annie could have defused the situation completely, but it might not have stayed dead, and she didn't want to defuse, she wanted to kill it. Plus, it was keeping the Ares III/Victoria I story on the front pages for another day and there is no such thing as bad publicity. The next afternoon she greeted a full press room.

"Good afternoon and thank you for coming. Beside me today is Dr Irene Shields, the staff psychologist assigned to Ares III and Victoria I, and we will answer take questions in a few minutes. In brief, as we stated yesterday, Dr Watney is attended to by Dr Dana Abernathy and has been interviewed at length by Dr Shields. He is in no danger mental health wise and both are convinced that he is not now, nor has he ever been suicidal as many in the press have suggested. Dr Watney has told us that in the first days of he and Commander Lewis being stranded he did, like almost everyone else, think he would not survive. His message, read from that perspective, is one of wishing to say his good byes in a permanent form, and recognizing those close to him. He did this over an extended period and the message clearly changes in tenor as plans for relief developed. The ones he made on the overland trip to Ares IV reflect what many of you know to be his rather unique sense of humor. Dr Watney is fit mentally and physically and is continuing his work at the Ares IV site. Dr Watney has told us that he continued to post his messages and did so on the assumption that NASA had noticed them and had never told him to stop. Fact is, we didn't notice them, it's not the sort of thing we look for. Obviously, this was an oversight and one we have corrected. The photos have been public for some time in keeping with NASA's public status, and I note that no one in the press noticed the messages either. The messages were first noticed by a young scientist working on a Science Fair project and it is my pleasure to introduce to you today, Kalani Akina, who as I understand it likes to be called 'Kay-Kay' and who is here with her parents today." Annie said as she held an open hand towards the trio in the front row. Kay-Kay's parents stood on cue, and after a moment Kay-Kay surrendered to standing as well, and even meekly waving to the gathered media.

"Kay-Kay, I understand you are quite shy, and I don't wish to put you on the spot, but Dr Watney has sent us a video and candidly it is for the most part directed to you. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr Mark Watney" Annie concluded as she turned to face the large screen behind her, and the lights dimmed. Mark's face filled the screen and he began.

"Victoria I, Watney, to Houston. Hey folks sorry for the scare, that wasn't my intent. I just wanted to memorialize some things and people, and, well, punctuation is difficult when you are stacking rocks. I'm fine and in great company. I won't say we are having a good time as it is a lot of work, but it is important what we are doing, and we wouldn't trade it for anything. We truly have seen things others can only imagine." Mark said as his face filled the screen.

"Annie tells me we have a special guest. Kay-Kay, this is for you. When they told us you were the first to figure out our messages we thought two things; first, what a smart and observant person you are, you are going to go far, and second; Commander Mindy Park of Victoria I points out that her friends in Satcom should have caught that sooner. Truthfully, we thought they did. Oops, Sorry guys!" Mark grinned.

"Finally, Kay-Kay, you are our guest today. Annie is going to make sure you get a docent to show you and your parents around the Johnson Space Center, and when we get back, I want to fly you guys out to the Kennedy Space Center for our return celebration. We will tour it too. I was in isolation the last time I was there so we will discover it together with your family. I gotta tell ya Kay-Kay, we are all looking forward to meeting you guys, and when I say 'we' I mean all of us." Mark said as the camera zoomed back to show him seated along with his crew mates.

"Hi Kay-Kay! We can't wait to meet you!" Mindy smiled and waved to the camera.

"We have to sign off now, but Kay-Kay, the next thing you will see on the screen is an overview of the Ares IV site taken this morning your time. It would not normally be published for 24 hours but we got the folks in Houston to speed things up for you. Before you start your tour, the press there may need your help analyzing it. Victoria I, Ares III Ground, Actual, out." Missy said in her best command voice and the video cut out, to be replaced with a photo of the landing site.

It took a few moments for Kay-Kay, who really hated being the center of attention, to scan it, gasp, and start to tear up. Her teenage angst was replaced almost instantly with determination to be her best both academically and physically.

The crew had worked together for hours to spell out with rocks, in Morse, "Kalani Kay Kay Akina Ground Crew Victoria I and Future Astronaut."

They had decided to not abbreviate anything but skipped punctuation for the sake of their aching backs.

Kalani Akina's name would be in stone, forever, on Mars.

A large framed print of the photo was presented to Kay Kay by Annie who carried it over to her.

Kay-Kay couldn't wait for her science teacher to see that shit. 


	14. Chapter 14

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 14**

"Mark" Dana asked as she shook him awake the next day. Mark had stayed up late e-mailing with Kay-Kay as Annie or Irene had given her his NASA address and arranged for her messages to be forwarded. All the crew had joined in and it was a treat to pen pal with her. It was clear she was bright and as much of an outsider as they had all been at that age. She had a ton of questions, but not the dumb ones they got asked over and over.

"Merwhagarbl?" Mark replied

"Mark, wake up, we need to talk" Dana said gently again.

"Mmmmurrrgh... what's up?" He asked, his eyes still closed.

"There is an hour left on red shift and according to the schedule Dr Beck will be in the con. We need to talk to him Mark."

"Is someone sick?" Mark asked, now quite alert.

"No, but he needs to know Mark. He will be your med officer once they get here."

"That's not for months. We can tell him then."

"No Mark, now, I insist."

"Why?"

"Because we are on Mars, and that means any one of us might die. If it is me and you live, he needs to know. We don't have to tell him anything else, about us, or uh, you and anyone else, but he needs to know your course of treatment, and honestly I would like him to recover your meds from your personal gear and store them so no one else finds them."

"Oh. Uh, if you're sure. His private line name should be easy for you to remember, same as your middle name, Stella."

"Stella?" Dana asked, apparently taken back by this.

"High school girlfriend I think."

"Did she grow up in Alabama or something?"

"Huh, no idea. Did you?"

"My mom picked it out. Friend from the 'hood I think."

"Huh. Small world."

Mark went to the comm center and entered the appropriate code and name for a private line and waited for Chris to acknowledge.

"Stella CQ Hermes, Beck. Hey Chris, are you alone?"

The turn around time was close to 12 minutes. In the meantime Dana and Mark stared at the screen and spoke only of their work on Mars. All of it would be seen and heard by Chris once he opened the line.

"Copy Stella. Hey... guys!" Beck said as his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "So Mark, I hear you're crazy and leaving messages in rocks? Good, glad you found a hobby. Yeah, Beth is on her way up to relieve me in 45 or so. How is Mars? We're going as fast as we can to get there."

"Copy. Hey Chris, things are good. I'm no where near as crazy as the media thinks I am, I was just, you know, saying my peace in case things went south and then when they came up with the plan, well, I thought you guys would want your names immortalized forever here. No need to thank me, you're welcome. I figured they would notice it and tell me to stop, but, well, they didn't. Reason we are calling, well, it's something I should have told you about a long time ago. This is Dana Abernathy, she and I are old friends and she was my doctor back home for a while. Anyway, uh Dana?"

"Chris, umm, Dr Beck, it's, uh, a pleasure to meet you at last. I ask you to keep this information private and privileged. I insisted on this call as I thought you should know in case I were unable to tell you later. I've been treating Mark for depression for some time. Straight up Wellbutrin, nothing major and nothing I could report to NASA. Mark is quite well and managed without issue. A lot of his problems here were due to him, being a complete dufus, leaving his meds on the Hermes before landing."

"It should still be in my bag Chris. You might want to grab it before, you know. Missy and everyone here know about it and it hasn't been an issue for me in about 7 or 8 years." Mark interjected.

"Mark is well managed, so I never even considered reporting it Dr Beck, but I understand if you have some objection, well, please discuss it with me first." Dana concluded.

Twelve minutes later Chris replied.

"Copy. Mark, you should have told me that a long, long, time ago. You know I wouldn't have scrubbed you. Jesus. Okay, well if you have been over it with Commander Lewis, I will keep it private unless it becomes a problem. You and I are going to have a long talk when you get here Mark. All three of us. Dana, I... well it's a pleasure uh, meeting you as well. I know we've talked before by text, but this is the first video they have let us have. Something about data compression, it's nice to see, I mean, put a face with the name Dana. Hey Mark, Beth took your personal gear with her on Earth, but its back in your bunk now. She didn't mention anything so I'm guessing she didn't inventory or, you know, invade your privacy. She did find a photo of you and some girl and she's been trying to figure out who that is, but it was in a folder the refurb crew left so she might ask you about that. She said it fell out when she moved the folder. She will be here in a few, why not stay online and say hi? It's great they decided to let us talk again, especially on video, I know we had text with Orion since it left earth, I feel like I know everybody there already, but you know, seeing a person's facial expression is half the conversation. We figured once you guys arrived they would open the lines up for all of us, but then NASA cut it all off, what was that all about?"

Mark thought it was weird for Chris to be talking so much about communications, and that they had been restricted to text before. Even weirder that he mentioned it twice, it was as though there was a subtext to the conversation, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He seemed almost nervous or startled. Did Chris want him to text message him later or something?

"Copy that. Oh, Montrose wanted a presser when we got here but we were all beat. Missy and Mindy found reasons to put it off for a couple days and Annie had Mitch drop the hammer on us. Then the whole 'Watney is cray cray' thing came up." Mark replied.

Just then Mindy came up to Mark's bunk aka the com center and sat beside him, with Dana on the other side.

"Hey! Are you talking to Hermes?"

"Sure, join us, that ugly guy on the screen is my best friend Chris. Wave at Chris Mindy."

Mindy did and the trio waited for Chris to reply. Just before he did, Beth entered the Hermes com, stared at the screen and recognized an enchanting pair of eyes.

"Hey Mindy and Dana, this is Beth, say 'hi' Beth" Chris said, echoing Mark's jest from 12 minutes before.

"Who... Why are you on Mars?" Beth asked.

"I'm the mission commander for Victoria I, Dana is our doctor, we've talked by text a bunch of times, it's good to finally see you! It's so good to meet you at last Beth, I mean that! Mark has told us all what a bright and charming person you are. Bragging on the Hermes crew is his favorite hobby, other than writing weird things with rocks."

"Hey Beth, it's great to see you! And Big Brother NASA is letting us talk again."

Twelve minutes later Beth's reply arrived. In the interim her face became more and more confused and distressed looking.

"Uh, good talking to you. I need to get to work. Hermes out." Beth said as she disconnected the channel. Chris was staring at her with a 'what the fuck' look on his face as she did.

"Well, that was weird, even by Mars standards. She really is nice, we must have just caught her at a bad time or waking up or something."

"No, she would have been awake for an hour at least by the schedule." Dana said.

"Dana's right. That girl is pissed about something, what did you say to her Mark?"

"Nothing, you were here, you saw the whole thing, I'm telling you, Dana, tell her, that's just Beth being, well, I guess focused on her work."

"No, she was pissed off. Trust me Mark. I know that look." Dana said.

"Dana's right." Mindy added.

"Well shit" Mark thought, "I thought we were good. I can't fucking win."

For all the work that setting up Ares III had been, the botany lab at Ares IV was a piece of cake. It arrived on a landing sled and the hardest parts were taking the landing thrusters off the sled, removing the cover, and then, much later, putting dirt in it.

NASA had gone back to a design idea from the teens of having it inflate, not just by filling the interior, but also the pre-insulated, triple layered walls, with nitrogen as well. Literally all the crew had to do was turn the valve on a tank that was already attached, then drive posts into the ground around it just to hold it down. While Mark was doing that, Dana and Lewis were filling the walls with an expanding structural foam, with Mindy and Anne setting up the lighting grids inside. A water recycler, atmospheric and humidity control was wheeled in, as was a heating unit and backups. All rolled into the hab easily. Finally, a primary power transfer unit and redundant one were carried in and connected. They were light and small enough to not require wheels.

All the systems had connectors to a silicon plastic and gold-plated connection that led to the external power supply, in this case a bank of solar cells on stilts and two beryllium reactor units parked a good hundred yards away and pointed out into space. All the power units had miniaturized compressors and jets to occasionally blow dust off as it was expected that the plants inside would out last the mission and instruments left inside would track their growth. That was one day's work and the crew was exhausted.

The next day was the hard work as three members of the crew, including Mark, screened dirt to remove big rocks, and then hauled it with a wheel barrow like cart that NASA had sent and dumped it on top of landscaping cloth, just like on Earth from a hardware store. Being NASA this cloth probably cost $100k and was certified by a doctoral dissertation peer reviewed by the best landscape cloth experts in the world. The cloth went over a drainage system so that excess water would not freeze on the bottom and could be recycled back into the irrigation sprayers after the washed-out iron could be collected, with a peer reviewed magnetic trap. A fertilizer blend, literally baked cow manure, was layered in with the dirt. It contained no bacteria and went in with the cold Martian soil to enrich it when warmed. NASA wanted complete control over the bacteria in the soil and this had been sent with Victoria I and kept warm. The air lock had not been installed so getting the soil in wasn't terrible, but it took all of that day and most of the next to get a sufficient amount.

Mindy and Dana had the task of filling the beryllium reaction units with enriched nuclear waste. This was frozen in multiple shielded containers which were inserted into the unit and then the containers removed. Once near each other they emitted just enough energy to melt, although not enough to create any useful amount of current.

The beryllium reaction unit began as an idea to create a more effective solar cell that didn't work. When beryllium is exposed to the radiation of the sun it becomes a gamma emitter and the idea was to use a sheet of it to start a low-grade reaction in the waste. When an atom divides its electrons are released until they find somewhere to go and have a negative charge, so inductors placed around it that are positively charged collect the moving electrons and much like the pick up on a guitar transmits it as usable voltage. The current is returned to the unit via a negatively charged conductor at the center of the waste completing the circuit and keeping the unit in compliance with Newton and Faraday.

The research was started at Alabama A&T in the 90's but it never worked on Earth as the planet is protected by the Van Allen belts and the necessary particles to launch the reaction never made it to the box. In space it was a different story. Each unit has at its bottom a pool of frozen sodium salts mixed with graphite and as soon as the waste was added and the front of the unit opened to allow radiation in, it overheated and the fuel melted into the coolant. This happened at the Discovery Station and the unit was cast off to the Moon's gravity just after Ares III launched the first time.

An adjustable iris was installed on the next unit and it had been providing some of the power to the station ever since. Since they are cheap and effective, and roughly the same size as a regular solar panel, the Orion was equipped with two that were still at close to 100% efficiency and the ship had an overabundance of power along with its normal solar panels and the hydrogen cells that were barely turned on. Running the botany hab was the final experiment before they were added to the Hermes and every other craft NASA had in space.

The one drawback is that the particle decay goes in whatever direction it feels like, and while the unit can be shielded on most of its surfaces, to completely block the front would just slowly shut the reaction down. So, if you get in front of one within a few meters, you will fry. At less than a hundred meters, your children will be born with three arms and as many heads. To protect those nearby the units are pointed away from where anyone might ever be. The good news is that it really doesn't matter so much which way you point them, so those on the Orion III are angled out towards the sky away from the areas the crew will be working in, and in transit take advantage of the artificial gravity provided by rotation to keep the coolant area on the "down" side of the reacting waste. They would be closed and jettisoned into space early in the approach to the Hermes.

After the dirt, two water tanks mixed with a weak nitric acid solution were wheeled in and attached to the irrigation system. As the water was frozen solid, they would do nothing until the heat was turned on, and that happened the next day when the airlocks were attached, inflated, and filled with the same structural foam. Then overlays of hab canvas was attached to the seams, the hab was filled with an oxygen, CO2 and nitrogen mix, and the heat turned on. That completed the second day of the project.

The third day was the easiest. It was nice and toasty inside and filled with what would have been a breathable atmosphere, except that it contained the chlorine discharge from the warming soil. The watering system was turned on and the chlorine was soon replaced with the variety of gases and compounds that are created when perchlorate reacts with nitric acid. Those the atmospheric system could remove, and the excess acid would enrich the soil with a necessary nutrient. That was all that could be done on the third day, and as everything was remotely available on a control panel in the Orion III com center, Mark did it without suiting up. The chlorine removal took a few days, during which the crew began collecting samples from the surrounding terrain. This time Mark was admonished to not write anything in Morse code.

After a few days the perchlorates were gone and the acidity of the soil was at proper levels for growing, it was time to mix the night soil and bacteria. NASA had Mark bring some starter soil from Ares III in case that which they sent on Orion III didn't make the trip. It was a good idea as one or the other was apt to fail, however both survived.

Missy asked for volunteers to assist Mark in mixing the bacteria with excrement collected the last two weeks of their overland trip, as well as another 200-kilo container of NASA approved space poop, and was surprised that everyone but her volunteered. This wasn't so much that they looked forward to it, but that they were sick of digging rock and soil samples and Mark had told them in advance they would leave their EVA suits on to avoid the smell. On learning this around the dinner table, Missy volunteered too, and Dana suggested that as they had worked every day for about three weeks, a couple days off was in order. The Hermes wasn't due for many months and there was plenty of time to finish the work of Ares IV, in that over half of the expected samples were already collected. Much ibuprophen had been consumed as a result.

"Don't we need to plant the garden after the, uh, poop mix?" Missy asked Mark.

"Yeah, but we need to let the soil normalize first. I didn't have time to do that at Ares III, but really we should wait for it all to decompose. Should take a few days, it will be helped along by the irrigation, we'll keep the dirt muddy. Hopefully we can plant in five days or so."

"What order will we plant in? I mean, to have everything arrive at the same time don't we..." Mindy started to ask.

"Plant it all at once. It will come ripe at different times, but this is mostly for science, not food. Of course, if it checks out, we can eat it anyway, or a lot of it. Some NASA will want us to fly back."

"Mark grew great corn, and potatoes." Missy said.

"Oh, I would love a baked potato now." Anna exclaimed.

"Truthfully you get kind of sick of them." Mark answered.

"On another note guys, in the dump today was a request from Montrose for us to do some news spots."

"Does anyone watch the weeklies we've been doing?" Dana asked.

"The ratings suck. We've made surviving on Mars boring again," Missy replied, "but she came up with an interesting idea. How would you feel about doing some 'Here's what we're doing on Mars' segments geared for teens and young adults?"

"Would we have creative input, or would it be the same boring crap they always put out?" Mindy asked, surprising everyone with her candor.

"What if we take the initiative and just write it ourselves? That might be a good way to relieve the monotony anyway." Dana suggested.


	15. Chapter 15

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 15**

The soil and rock samples from the plots around the Orion were completed over the next several weeks. The work shifted to other activities and never seemed to stop. Every task that was completed was replaced with another task the scientists in Houston and elsewhere on Earth came up with, and the extra mission time was a dream come true for NASA. It was turning into a workload nightmare for Victoria/Ares III.

Dana and Anna had spent the day taking air samples with a small battery powered machine that compressed air and recorded both the former pressure, wind direction, location and temperature before storing it in a small metal and glass lined cylinder. A sticker was printed out, stuck on the side of the cylinder and they moved ten meters to start again. Each took less than a minute and they worked going towards what little wind there was so that no dust would be accumulated that wasn't already in the atmosphere. Each cylinder was stored in a cloth bag, much like a soft cooler, and both astronauts carried one.

Mark and Mindy got to go around to various large rocks near the crater rim and using a hammer chip out stone from the lower layers. The stone was photographed with a measuring rod hanging from the top so scientists at home could guesstimate the age. Dating the decay rates of any isotopes would give a more accurate analysis once on Earth. These too were stored, and the gardening cart was used to carry them all around.

The crew had begun rotating their shifts so that one person was always in the Orion III to monitor communications between each other, keep an eye on the weather as seen by the parade of satellites overhead, and keep NASA updated. The shifts were two hours in the "morning" time and three in the "afternoon." The rest of the day was spent doing initial testing of the materials and logging the results. Every night a new set of logs was uploaded to Houston and each morning in the data dump were a new set of questions about the previous day's results and requests for more samples from particular spots. This was pretty much a full-time job and this day Missy was on her "rest" day. She had spoken with NASA several times, each report bragging on her crew, and had some message traffic with the Hermes, which was still months away.

The Ares IV site worked the Martian day based upon available sunlight, while the Hermes kept Zulu time based upon the time in Greenwich, England. As a result, it could be "night" on Hermes while it was "day" on Mars. Confusing the time situation more, NASA worked flights in three shifts; red, white, and blue, as it had since the Mercury program. Each shift was staffed by anyone of five groups to allow for days off and vacation time. The result was that although there were private communication channels, it was difficult to set up a time when your target audience wasn't surrounded by coworkers, and when they spoke to Houston there was really no telling who would be on the other end of the transmission. After launch Mindy had programmed all the displays on Orion to show both Zulu and Mars time, as well as which shift was on, to make things easier to keep up with. Beth had done the same on Hermes, as well as a running clock showing hours of daylight on Mars. Both ships had Zulu time displayed already, so it was necessary only to add the local time on Mars and the Houston shift rotation. This was tricky due to the Martian day being almost an hour and a half longer, but Beth and Mindy were both talented enough to figure it out. Relativity did affect the apparent times in tiny amounts; they were going fast on the Hermes, but not that fast, so the time was always accurate to within a second.

Because there was a limited amount of bandwidth available to receive messages on Orion III, the use of video was limited as well, although as Hermes got nearer compression became less of a problem. Beth had put a bit of effort into getting a private message with Commander Lewis at a time when only she would see it.

When Lewis got the message alert showing her "Sarah" was calling her on her private line from Hermes, she immediately keyed in the access code and saw a distressed Beth on the screen when the message downloaded.

"Commander, are you alone?"

"Yes, everyone is doing EVA work. I'm here by myself another hour or so. How are things on Hermes?" Missy was happy to see Beth as it had been several weeks since anyone on Mars had. She knew Beth seemed irate about something in her last contact, but no one on Mars seemed to know what, and no one on Hermes would admit to knowing. The men on Hermes simply didn't want to get involved in fixing Mark's love life anymore. Missy would have written it off on Earth, but she was depending on the crew of Hermes to do their jobs professionally and without distraction, so it was of some concern. Missy had been busier worrying about and managing the research operations on Mars though and had not given it as much thought as she would have had the crew all been together.

Missy waited the 10 minutes before hearing Beth reply. In the meantime, she studied the sysop's face and saw nothing but stress and angst.

"Good, things are good. I... I didn't want to talk about this, I thought I was coping okay but I need to tell you. Melinda Park and Mark have a history Commander. I don't know why she was ever placed on that ship. Here, look!" Beth said as she held up the photo of Mark and Mindy the week before isolation.

Missy went from concerned to pissed in an instant.

"Yes Beth, I know about that. It was before mission, both reported it, both acted honestly and most importantly it has not interfered with their work or their service. I've seen no evidence of improper fraternization. Oh, and both have acted like mature adults rather than teenage girls with a crush. Mindy Park commands Orion III because she knows it better than anyone, has served as an outstanding leader and under the rules will be my XO on return to Hermes. That makes her your future boss. You need to get it together. I know how you feel about Mark, I have no issue with that. Mindy is not your competitor, and if she was, you would be losing with this behavior. Mark is fond of all of us, but especially you, and yes, I think Mindy. He is staying professional. Mindy is staying professional. You better figure out how you are going to as well. You are apparently rifling through Mark's privacy and I won't tolerate that either. I don't know how this will sort out on Earth, but right now you are on my ship and you will get your act together. Understand?" Missy knew she was using a stick but was on the next message going to replace it with a carrot. Until Beth decided to continue her tantrum.

"I... yes. I didn't realize you knew already. Sorry to bother you." Beth said as she disconnected the contact.

This really pissed Lewis off and she immediately re-initiated the line. Beth dutifully responded, opening the private channel to see a red-faced Lewis.

"Victoria One Ares III Actual to Johannson. Beth, if you ever disconnect on me again, I will bring you up on insubordination charges. What is your issue?"

"Copy Victoria I Ares III, Johannson here. I, I'm sorry Commander, but this is really upsetting me. I, I just feel like... I'm on this ship, wasting my life, and she's down there with Mark and I can't even talk to him or see him or... it's not fair. I don't blame you or anyone else, I can do my job, it's just really frustrating."

"Copy. Well you're going to have to get used to being frustrated until we get back to Earth. Grow up. I don't think Mindy or Mark sees this situation as a competition, Mark speaks fondly of both of you, all of us. I do know that if it were a competition you would be getting your ass kicked as you are the one stressing Mark out with your infantile behavior. Get your shit together Johannson. Tonight, you, Mark and Mindy are going to talk. I'm not going to tell you what to say, but you are going to work this out or I will. Victoria I, Ares III ground, Actual, Out."

Missy then disconnected the transmission making it clear to Beth who was in charge, and that it wasn't Beth. She took a deep breath to calm herself, read a text from Houston that changed the radio call sign of the mission, and then keyed her headset to speak with her crew outside.

"Victoria I, Ares III Actual, Crew, Status?"

"Copy Commander, this is Dana. Anna and I are almost done with air samples in areas I and II, this machine really sucks. In a good way." Dana replied, trying to make a joke.

"Copy, Mindy?"

"We finished with samples for the large rocks at Area I, it went much easier than expected. They are quite hard, but the layers are brittle and flaking so we got more than expected much faster. Right now, we are about to set off a thermite reaction and film it to answer Kay-Kay's question about building a fire on Mars."

"Copy... wait, what?" Lewis said as she stood and looked out the view port just in time to see a brilliant flash of light followed by a glow that looked like a welder's torch for a few seconds which generated a quickly rising column of smoke and cast shadows all around the area with its intense but brief fire. The fire was as far on the other side of the botany hab as the ship was from the hab, and she could see both Watney jumping up and down and shouting "WOOHOO!" in celebration while Park filmed it all.

"Wow! That was awesome guys! Did you get it on film?" Anna was heard to shout into the comm.

"Watney! This was your idea wasn't it?" Lewis said, clearly not amused.

"Well, it was Kay Kay's, sort of. She asked about whether there was enough air on Mars to support a fire and, well, it's for the weekly news spot we are working on."

"I don't remember approving that."

"I'm sure you don't. I don't recall asking permission, but it's for science."

"Science!" Dana nearly shouted.

"Tomorrow we were thinking of mixing sugar and liquid oxygen in one of the drink decanters and splitting that big rock in half, or, you know, flipping it over." Mark continued, barely able to contain his giggles.

"No. Just... No!" Lewis replied. "If everyone is done for the day, come on in. Mark, Mindy, I need to see you in the com."

Missy was starting to think Dana might want to step back on the anti-depressants she was giving Mark.

The crew made their way back to the airlock, Mark and Mindy being delayed by pulling back the 100-meter long power cable they had "borrowed" from the spare parts on the Ares IV hab sled. It had been plugged into the botany hab external power coupling just long enough to ignite the magnesium they had recovered from the perchlorate trap on the water system which caused the iron oxide from the rocks to react with some extra aluminum shielding from the hab kit. Neither Mark or Mindy was sure it would work, but fortunately for the NASA education program, it had.

Just as the crew was cycling through the airlock Missy got a message from Houston indicating that one of the ESA satellites might be acting up and if she could confirm a bright flash of light at the site.

"Copy that. Affirmative. Watney and Park doing a demo for weekly public report in response to a child's question. Thermite ignited safe distance from everything at KK. I approved. Hopefully good footage. Sorry, should have warned you." Missy replied as the crew took off their helmets and stared at her.

"I covered for you. This time. Next time, permission instead of forgiveness. Understand?"

"Roger that Commander." Mindy smiled. "I think the footage looks great, we will do the voice over tonight. You want to do the count-down?"

"You two are going to get me put in Leavenworth, you know that, right?"

"We could always land the shuttle somewhere with no extradition." Anna grinned.

"Don't encourage them. I swear I have a team of juvenile delinquents." Missy frowned. "By the way, Houston approved of the name change for the site, now instead of saying "Victoria I, Ares III at Ares IV ground" we can just say KK and your last name when talking to Houston, Hermes or Discovery. I think whoever is on rest day should use it for ground work too, it only makes sense to. I think we recognize each other's voices by now."

"Yes!" Mindy nearly shouted as she pumped her fists.

"Uh, Why KK?" Mark asked.

"Oh, we sent that request a couple days ago. It's been a mouthful since we landed, and since we put Kay Kay's name out there, well, it seems appropriate, and now all the maps will change to show where KK is. It's a win-win." Anna smiled.

"Oh, that is pretty cool, who gets to tell Kay Kay?"

"Group email?" Missy suggested.

"Why don't we put it in the weekly so her teacher will know too? The maps won't get reprinted for years." Anna said.

"Perfect. And yes to the countdown, I already told Houston I approved anyway. And I don't approve." Missy smiled. "Dana how long since a down day?"

"Six days commander."

"Let's have another one tomorrow. That will let Mindy have some time to process the weekly and you guys look beat. I imagine I do too. Also, there is an issue on Hermes I am going to need Mindy and Mark's help defusing."

"What's up on the Hermes?" Mark asked.

"Another one of your problems, as if I didn't have enough real work to do. Let's talk upstairs."

Missy explained the situation as well as she could, with Mark and Mindy reviewing the last contact with her. They couldn't replay it as personals are not stored except by choice of the receiving location, and no one else could recover them. Still it made sense, made Mark feel horrible, and made Mindy decide that Beth was an immature twat. 


	16. Chapter 16

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 16**

Mark reached to open a comm link, but Mindy stopped him.

"Let's you and I talk a minute first." Mindy suggested.

"You want to get our stories straight or something?" Mark grinned.

"I don't have a story to get straight Mark. When you tell the truth you never have to remember anything. No, uh, look, a minute ago downstairs I was ready to march up here and chew Beth out for acting like a school girl playing dress up with her Barbie and Ken dolls who gets mad whenever she sees Skipper, but that's not how I should handle things. I think to some extent I get where she's coming from. I guess I never realized how important you two were to each other even after Missy brought me up to speed, and I, well I can see where she is frustrated that we are together every day and she is stuck in space wondering if the guy she is coming to save is even going to care about her when she arrives and"

"Skipper was Barbie's sister, you probably mean Midge."

"Right Midge. How the fuck would you know that? And don't change the subject, we are talking about Mark, Beth and Mindy." Mindy said, irked at being interrupted.

"I told her how I felt, months ago. Geez, what does"

"Have you showed her?" Mindy asked.

"Huh? How would I do that? What? Write her name in Morse with rocks? I did that already."

"No, I mean, yeah, that's really sweet and very memorable, but you did that for all of us. I mean, have you initiated any contact with her on the Hermes from here? Is there something I'm missing?"

"No, I. Well I haven't really talked to anyone. It's a depression thing, I've been pretty, you know, withdrawn, and"

"Yes, the whole world has noticed that, but Beth isn't the whole world. Beth is special in your life, or she thought she was, and now she never hears from you. She sees you here with me, how is she supposed to feel? Oh, and I bet she doesn't know about the depression, does she?"

"No" Mark admitted.

"When Missy and I talked about this a few weeks ago she told me Beth... well, you are apparently the only guy she has really loved in her life, she fully expected your relationship to pick up where it left off once the mission ended, and then she saw you die. She literally thought you were dead for the better part of a hour before Missy contacted the MAV, then she thought you might die from lack of proper care for a few days after that. She was your evac partner, right? She saw the dish hit you and you being dragged away. Then for the next year she thought you would die before you could be relieved. Now she is spending her life to do just that and finds out you are down here with the girl she thinks you replaced her with."

"Yeah. I, I get it I guess. And now she sees me down here with you and... yeah, I can see that. Okay, so what do we do?" Mark asked.

"Well, we talk to her of course, that is all we can do given the distance. Assure her that we understand, and that we're not down here falling madly in love and"

"What if one of us is already madly in love?" Mark asked, looking down, almost whispering.

After a moment's thought Mindy replied.

"Then that would mean both of us are."

"Oh."

"But I'm not going to do that to that poor girl. We aren't going to do that to her. I know you care for her, probably as much as you care for me. Okay. All that will sort itself out later. Now, we just have to coexist and understand our feelings, all of our feelings, and Beth needs to know I'm not stealing her guy. She needs to know she has a chance with you, and honestly, I think she does. I don't know how this will sort out Mark, but I have faith it will be okay. If you pick her over me, well that will be your loss, but I will live with it and move on. I'm living my best life and I hope it goes on with you, but you control that, not me. And you control Beth's future too. I get that. It's just something we have to deal with until the mission is over. We've gone months following Missy's order and we will continue to, and that frustrates the ever-living shit out of me. But that's just the way it is. Now, let's talk to Beth. I think we understand the situation, don't we?"

"Uh, no, but maybe you do." Mark said as he opened the channel and keyed in the proper sequence to make it private."

"Hey Beth," Mark began, "I hope you are where you can talk. So, first, I'm sorry for not writing you sooner, or calling, skyping, whatever this is. Communicating. I, well there is some stuff about me, well, we will talk about that later. I can't see you yet, I guess I won't for 12 minutes or so, but, well, Missy wants us to talk and... okay, so you have figured out part of the story on your own. Beside me here is Mindy. After you broke it off with me, well, I was lost. I understand why you did, mission is first. I get that. It's not your fault. Anyway, a week before isolation I met Mindy. It was at the Ascan class sendoff party for me. Mindy worked at Satcom, well, she told me the department of hipsters and"

"That's not important Mark, get to the point." Mindy said.

"Right, well, we hit it off and for a week were, well, inseparable. I didn't know Mindy was made commander of Victoria until literally the day we got here, so it was a bit of a shock. So you know, I know we have a promise to talk when we get to earth, we talked about that last time. Well, I made a promise to Mindy to do the same. I made that when I went into isolation, not when she got here, when I thought you had moved on. Either way, doesn't matter. Missy thinks you're hurting right now because we are here and you are, well, busting your ass to rescue me and now learn we are here and... Geez. The point I'm trying to make is that nothing is going on with us here and I, well I adore you both. You're both giving up two years of your lives to rescue my sorry ass, and even if you were not, well, you would still be the most amazing people I know. So... I don't know what to do and..."

"Beth, hi" Mindy began, "Mark is hurting pretty bad over this right now. I know you didn't mean to do that, but... look, you think it's unfair that I'm here and you're there. You're right. It is unfair. No doubt about that, and there is nothing we can do about it. I'm going to be physically closer to Mark for nine months before you arrive. I know how you feel, because you were physically closer to Mark for seven on the way to Mars. I hurt then with the longing I had, and yes, I may be the only person at NASA that knew about you two before launch. Mark told me. I ached inside, like you are now. But we aren't enemies, we aren't even competitors. This is something we are going to have to work through back on Earth. There are only a few ways for this to end. Mark decides to stay with you and drops me. That would suck because we are pretty awesome together. Mark decides to drop you and stay with me. That would suck too, because it's clear how much you two adore, respect, and love each other. Mark could drop both of us, which would really suck for all of us, or we could both drop him. Or one of us could. I don't see any of the last three happening. But that is for Earth, not Mars."

"Now, I can't do anything to get you here faster, but I'm to be the XO on Hermes's return to Earth, and Missy is trying to teach me what that means. One thing it means is that I will be setting the work schedules and I make you this promise, woman to woman, for the first two months of the return, you and Mark will always be scheduled together. That way you will have him to yourself for nine months, I will have had him to myself for the same. After that it will be a general rotation. We will have two pilots and one can sit right seat. Mark will be bringing back a lot of botanical samples he will need help testing and your skill set should be good for assisting him. Honestly, I was going to schedule myself for that, but I think it's best for you to work together and heal any harm to your relationship. I'm not your enemy and I'm not your competitor. We are both in a difficult situation and we can work together to sort it out, or work against each other. Space is not the place to work against each other."

They waited until Beth appeared on the screen. She was red faced and teary, and even more so as she watched the message. She was in her bunk watching the communication from the screen in her quarters, wearing sweats from her alma mater although Mark knew it was not the comfy Stanford hoodie she had worn on the trip to Mars. She looks so cute, adorable, and vulnerable that Mark nearly cried at seeing her despair.

"But... okay, I, I didn't mean to cause problems it's just... Mark I haven't heard from you in so long and I saw, uh, Commander Park there and..." Beth broke down in tears.

"Hey, I get that. Well, there is something you should know. I mean, why you haven't heard from me. Chris knows, but he would never tell. And Dana, our doctor on the Victoria crew, well, she knows too. Mindy knows, well everyone here does because they needed to, and it is time you knew too Beth. I've had depression for years, and I can get really withdrawn. It is controlled with medication but I left my meds on Hermes except for a month's worth, and until I got to here, well, I was out. Dana knew about it and I'm taking my meds again and I'm fine now, but I was in a dark place most of the time at Ares III after you guys left, and the trip over here. I should have had you guys send them down in the OEP, but, well, I was ashamed and didn't really want anyone to know. My biggest symptom is not wanting to deal with people, or even get out of bed. Well, most days I don't want to get out of bed so that may not... well, look, I adore you. We promised to talk, and I've told you, I am so very much looking forward to that. I never meant to hurt you I just can't cope sometimes, with people. Any people. I spent about seven months just focused on keeping Missy alive, I knew I would die here, a lot of the time I still think I will, but you, Mindy, Missy, all of my crew, you don't deserve that. That's a long way to say, 'I'm sorry' and I will contact you all the time now. I'm back out of the dark. Oh, and for four of those months we didn't really have a radio. But no excuses, I've not been sens... well, I'm a jerk. But I'm good now, we're good now. Are we good now?"

"I mean. I don't know how this will work, I don't know... you have been in every thought I've had and I'm not even worth a radio contact. Mark, that's not how you tell a girl you are thinking of her. I'm sorry but it's not. The depression... okay, but you could still shoot me a text, anything. It feels like you've forgotten me."

Mindy was about to reply that Mark talked of her often, but Mark waved her off and asked Mindy to hand him his personal bag under the cot beneath her.

"No, you are unforgettable. Let me show you something; I was going to wait until we were all on Hermes, I wanted to surprise you, but, well maybe now is the right time. We didn't have much extra room on the rover Beth, I just got to carry my small bag with two changes of clothes. So, I tossed one change for other stuff. That's probably why I smelled so bad when I got here Mindy" Mark smiled. "I tossed it so I would have room for this stuff, I wanted to bring it to you guys, I have Rick's crucifix and his water bottle," Mark said as he held it up, "Vogel's laptop with his kids pictures and such, Chris's chronograph," Mark gasped as he held the Rolex up as he for the first time noticed the engraving on the back and a puzzle that had vexed him fell into place.

Mark stammered for a moment then recovered. "Chris told me someone special had given it to him, I thought that was you for a while but now, well I know it isn't. And this, I brought this. I had to." Mark said as he held up a well broken in, warm and comfy women's size small Stanford hoodie.

"I'm keeping it for you. Sometimes I hold it up to my face and breath in just to... well, I've thought about you every day Beth. If I live to be a hundred or die on Mars, I will think of you every day. Yeah, I think about Mindy too, but that doesn't mean you aren't in my thoughts and heart. I... I don't know what else I can say."

Mark folded it carefully and gently placed it back in his bag like it was a holy relic. Twelve minutes later Beth's face changed to one of pure joy.

"I can't believe you did that, that is the most amazing... okay, this is going to work somehow. Mark, I love you. Can I talk to Commander Park for a bit, just, you know, just us?"

"Only if you call me 'Mindy'."

Mark smiled and went down the ladder steps to the common area.

"How did it go?" Missy asked, while Dana and Anna stared.

"Uh, you'll have to ask Mindy."

"Why Watney? You were there."

"I don't understand women, I think we've all figured that out by now."


	17. Chapter 17

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 17**

Over the next several months things healed with Beth, Mindy and Mark. Lewis began talking to her semi ex more and more and was remembering why she married him to begin with, although she was still seriously pissed. Mark knew where he stood with Dana, although he had not told her he knew yet. Anna, although friendly and warm, seemed ambivalent about pursuing a relationship with Mark. This was of some comfort to Watney as it would have been one more thing to worry about.

Beth and Mindy began a long-distance friendship, albeit a weird one, and they never spoke when Mark or anyone else was around. Still they made plans for the reunion on Hermes and beyond, and both seemed contented, if not exactly happy about the situation.

Kay Kay continued to be everyone on board's pen pal, and all adored their little goth sidekick. More and more they began writing her into their weeklies, and her parts were filmed by NASA at the NPT station near her home. Their ratings steadily improved.

Mark was back to his usual self and become the humorous optimist that held the crew together in tight quarters. The first harvest came and went, tested okay for consumption in that it had no trace radioactivity, weird chemicals or mutations. Fresh veggies, as they came in, helped the crew's moral as well, and Mark was notified by his alma mater that as he had grown crops on Mars he had colonized it. Mark took this to mean he was the King of Mars and for a bit laughed that the rest of the crew should refer to him as "His Majesty." The crew never saw it that way and declared Missy to be the Queen, however while Mark readily accepted that she was the commander of Mars, only he had actually colonized it and only he could be King. This was debated until finally Dana contacted Houston with the question and got an answer back that this was all against the UN treaties on the usage of space.

Mark pointed out that as King of Mars he had never signed such a treaty and had no intention of doing so.

It became a running joke among the crew, as well as the crew of Hermes, who threw their hats in favor of Mark, but only after he promised them "Huge tracts of land and the titles of Duke and Duchess of Mars and Protector of All Things Martian." He even agreed to whack them with swords knighting them as a further bribe for their loyalty and promised to protect their kingdoms from any extraterrestrial invasions.

NASA worried that other nations supporting the Ares program might not find it as humorous and quietly had Missy cut it all out, which she reluctantly did. Her joint crews were coming together, and she didn't want to mess with the chemistry, even if it was silly.

The second crop was coming along fine and would be harvested just before Hermes arrival if all went well, then the ground would be re-seeded, and the monitors set to twice per day beam updates to Houston.

With the Hermes two months out Mark awoke with a start, the message alert was blaring from Houston. Everyone else was on the lower level still asleep, so Mark followed procedure and opened the channel to review the message, which was text.

"KK Victoria, be advised meteorology shows strong storm of Sol 6 type approximately 1.5 hours away, mark Zulu 18:15, moving on a path which may intersect your position. Open satellite channels for imagery and radar. Copy?"

"KK Watney to Houston. Roger Houston. Will advise commanders. Watney out."

"Hey Commanders, you might want to get up here." Mark shouted down the portal.

"What is it Mark?" He heard Missy reply, half asleep.

"Weather alert. We have a Sol 6 type storm that may hit us."

"On my way. Mindy, get up, let's get ready to bug out." Missy said loudly.

"Everybody up! We may go into orbit early." Mark heard Mindy shout.

Mindy was immediately awake and pulling on a jump suit. Missy just went up the steps in her skivvies, Mark had seen her in less, but still lost his focus.

"Dana, Anna, fold up the cots, stow anything you find that is loose and seal the water supplies, showers and sinks. Get ready to rotate them if necessary, I'll be back in a sec." Mindy ordered as her other two crew members got up and got to work. "Oh, and check to make sure all the samples are strapped in."

"Mark, you should get dressed." Missy said as she entered the com to find him still in his underwear.

"Uh, you too?" Mark grinned as he switched the video to the satellite imagery.

"What do you think Mindy?" Missy asked.

"Hmmm, well, it doesn't look as bad as Sol 6, but that's a pretty high wind speed if the reflection rate is right. Mark, we need to fold up your cot and get ready to rotate the com."

"Uh, okay."

"I can do it, you go help Anna and Dana." Mindy smiled.

"You're not thinking of leaving, geez we would be in orbit for weeks."

"Probably not, but we might. Orion III has a coding for tilt that your MAV didn't. If we go past 13.5 degrees with the power on, it launches itself on the assumption that the crew is on board, unable to act, either unable to land safely, or slow to lift off. Then it uses radar telemetry to park itself in high orbit and the O2 goes to over 20% to wake everyone up. Hopefully at that point with enough fuel to attempt landing again. Feeler gauges on the struts and the gyros can level on landing of course, but if the ground unexpectedly gives away, it's out of here before it falls over. It's a safety feature. Probably not going to happen, we are heavier and have a wider base than the MAVs do so we are going to be less effected by the wind, but I don't want to be slammed into a wall by accident." Mindy replied."

"Oh. So, there is there a procedure for this?" Missy asked, glad that her XO knew the ship so well.

"No, when Orion was built no one knew about these storms. It wasn't until Ares III that it was known to be possible. We should be fine, but we should get ready anyway out of an abundance of caution. Mark, can you tell the others to suit up and come up to the con when they are finished? And Missy, you might want to get dressed, I'm guessing the next message will be video. Mark, once you're done down there please haul my EVA up, would you?"

"Got it. Good point." Missy answered while Mark nodded his head and slipped into his jump suit. Missy went back to the lower habitat level to get hers, then returned while Mark was helping the others finish prepping the living quarters for flight. He didn't really know how so he just followed Dana and Anna's instructions and aided as he was able.

"Hey Commander, the rover, shouldn't we unplug it and move it away from Orion?" He asked just as Missy was finishing up getting into her own EVA.

"Shit. Yes. Mindy!" She shouted to the upper level, "how much time do we have?"

"From the looks of it, at least 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Why?"

"I'm going out to move the rover away."

"No!" Mark nearly shouted as he was putting his EVA on. "I've got it. Worst case scenario the ship needs it's commander more than it's botanist."

Missy stared at him, knowing he was right.

"Where you going to put it?"

"Beside the big rock past the botany hab we were going to blow up. Maybe that will block any big gusts."

"Go, hurry. Any trouble you come back, park it down-wind from the ship and get back in here. Bring up the staircase with you."

"It will break away if necessary," Mindy said through the upper level portal.

"Okay, don't worry about that." Missy replied.

"See ya in a few."

"You want me to go with you?" Anna asked. She was already suited up as well.

"No, someone might have to fly this thing" Mark grinned.

"I will" Dana volunteered.

"They might need a doctor here. Seriously, it's no big deal."

"I could go." Mindy said.

"Who would know how all this stuff works? I'll be back before the storm hits. Leave a light on for me." With that said, Mark smiled and stepped into the airlock.

It took Mark only seconds to disconnect the power cable, throw it in the rover and hop in. He didn't bother to pressurize it as he would be opening it back up only a minute or two later and he left his EVA on. Mark returned in under five minutes total to the relief of all on board. Most of that time was driving the rover and cycling through the air lock as he covered the distance back by skipping it in hops, and that took less than half a minute. He could tell that the wind had picked up by the dust blowing off everything, but the atmosphere was so thin that it he could not feel any of it. Of course, the actual storm was still well away. While he was out Anna and Mindy ran the pre-flight systems checks and found all to be good and operating at optimum levels.

"Hey, I'm back, no problems."

"Storm is still 45 or so away, we're going helmet on in a half hour or so Mark" Missy said. This was a mixed blessing to Mark as it was still 74 degrees inside, but he had his suit set at a more comfortable 70. Without his helmet he would turn the temperature control off as it would just blow out into the command section of the ship. EVAs really held the heat in, and the system would slowly heat up anyway, so for the next half hour he would be sweating. On the other hand, not having the helmet on was much less claustrophobic when indoors. He took his helmet off and sat beside Dana in the lower tier of seats, with Missy on the far side of her. Mindy and Dana were seated above them at the command console.

No one said anything for several minutes although there was a continuing conversation with both Houston and Hermes. Mindy announced Mark's return and that Victoria One was secured for emergency launch if necessary. If this came about, which everyone doubted, they would be in orbit about six weeks before Hermes arrived, but their real work on Mars was done. They had been doing busy work for a few weeks, having completed all the original Ares IV research as well as several months of new tasks developed by NASA. The only interesting part of their work the last several weeks had been the botany lab, questing for gems and interesting minerals, and making videos with Annie Montrose and Kay Kay's assistance on Earth.

After several minutes of light radio traffic Mark broke the silence.

"Hey, do you have any footage of this for our weekly?" He asked as he remembered his personal bag had been under the seats/cot when they were folded down.

"Oh! Good idea Mark!" Mindy replied, "What are you looking for?"

"My bag."

"Four billion men in the world and we get the one that's worried about his purse" Dana joked.

"No, it has some stuff in it I don't want to lose."

"I put in the storage bin beside you there, Blue 110. See it?" Mindy said.

"Oh, great thanks."

"And it's not his purse Dana, it has his peace offerings to the Hermes crew."

"Oh? More opals?" Anna asked.

"No, well yes, a few of the really pretty ones, and some magnetite and olivine, but I, well we had limited time to prep when the evac occurred and everyone had to leave their stuff. Some of it, well, it was precious to them and I didn't want them to lose it, so I put the most important ones in my bag."

"He gave up a change of clothes to bring Beth her college hoodie, Rick his cross, Alex his kid's photos, and Dr Beck his watch."

"You saved Chr.. Dr Beck's watch?" Dana asked.

"Yeah, it meant the world to him. He said it was given to him by a loved one. I couldn't leave it on Mars." Mark said as he stared at Dana. She softly smiled and knew Mark had read the inscription on the Rolex, "Come home, I love you - Stella." A silent message passed between them as she reached over and squeezed his hand.

"Thank you" Dana mouthed silently to which Mark merely smiled and nodded.

"You only had one change? No wonder you smelled so bad." Missy grinned.

"That's probably not the reason. Leave him alone five minutes and he's feral. Like a stray cat. In heat." Anna said.

Mindy turned the camera on as everyone giggled, and they shot about ten minutes of footage of the crew in their launch chairs explaining why there might be an emergency launch and all the things they had done to quickly prepare the ship to be ready. Their mood had lightened, although all were still stressed.

After the footage was taped, they re-ran the pre-launch check list twice and then waited.

"So, Mark, if we launch you are going to have to sleep down one level with the rest of us, these seats will have to stay upright." Anna announced.

"Well, it's not like I haven't bef"

"Stop. There is no way you can finish that sentence without sounding like a jerk Watney." Lewis ordered.

"He has a point Commander. We not only got stuck with the male astronaut that worries about his purse, but also the biggest libertine at NASA." Anna said, making everyone giggle.

"Well, be that as it may"

"It's true. We have the biggest man ho in the scientific world" Mindy suggested.

"Wait, we aren't going to pick on Mark just because he's a ho." Missy grinned.

"I'm a ho? Really? I'm on a ship with a bunch of women that have literally slept with every guy on the planet and I'm the ho? Really? We want to go there do we?" Mark giggled.

"Okay, point taken. Mindy, don't log this conversation." Missy said trying to control both her embarrassment and laughter.

"Got it. Running silent. Also, it's time for helmets, Dana and I will be on mic from here on out, but NASA may hear cross talk. Be nice Mark."

"I'm always nice. Man ho. Geesh" Mark replied as he fitted his helmet in place and keyed his mic onto the internal network.

When the wind began to make noise as it passed around the craft Dana reached beside her and took Mark's hand again, and on the other side Missy's as well. They held each other this way for reassurance while the storm began to blow all around them.


	18. Chapter 18

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 18**

A half hour into the worst of the storm it was apparent to all but Watney that it was a dry run. Good practice for their final launch from Mars, but it would not be occurring that day. The crew watched the sand blowing around outside, and tracked the storm's progress with both the ship's and satellite radar. Every few minutes messages were exchanged with both Houston and Hermes, but the ship didn't even rattle, much less tilt. Mark wasn't aware as a few minutes into it they heard him softly snoring.

"Someone should wake him up before Houston hears him" Anna said over the internal comm link.

"He's only on the internal, you and Mindy have the call out." Lewis replied.

"What do you imagine they are thinking back home?" Mindy asked.

"They are probably terrified, like we were a half hour ago. Given that it is about noon in Houston the whole country is probably watching it unfold live. Well, on a fifteen-minute delay anyway." Dana replied.

"We could call it clear and let them know." Mindy suggested.

"We can't, there is still a storm out there with a wind speed outside of Houston's safe range. Why don't we just put Mark on the Hermes and Houston channels? That will tell them all they need to know without us breaking off before the storm dies down." Anna suggested."

Missy laughed, then commanded "Do it!"

The normal chatter on the line continued as Mindy called out wind speed, air pressure and weather info, and Anna sent potential telemetry updates, all copied by Houston and Rick on the Hermes.

Four minutes later Hermes reported a rhythmic vibratory noise, asked about the current wind speed and called for an antenna condition check.

"Copy Hermes, KK Park, we think what you are hearing is Watney snoring. He fell asleep a few minutes after the storm hit. It is pretty boring down here."

"KK, Hermes Actual, Repeat? He fell asleep?" Rick asked minutes later.

"Copy Hermes Actual, KK Park. Yep, I don't think he was very excited by it. Orion III is stable. We can barely hear the wind."

"Copy KK."

Fifteen minutes after that the wind speed and air pressure were back to normal and radar showed the storm had moved off away from KK station.

"Houston, Hermes, Please Copy, KK Park. Be advised situation is returned to normal, wind speed and gusts below 20 kts, air pressure within normal parameters. Nothing on long range approach. Watney still asleep. We're calling it. For the record, Orion III is an outstanding ship and never budged in the wind. Suggest reviewing possibility of Orion craft use on all missions. She's a great ship. KK Park, over."

"Copy KK, Hermes Actual. She has a great crew too. Glad you guys are okay. Please don't wake Watney. He needs his beauty rest. Lots of it. Hermes Actual, over."

"Copy that. Hermes, KK Park, out."

Over the next several weeks the NASA gift shops, both at research centers and online, made a ton of money licensing Watney's image on posters and tees with the caption "Nap Time!"

Mark protested that it should say "Mars tried to kill it's King, so he took a nap" but NASA refused to print those. He and the crew cut up on their weekly videos by having Mark fall asleep in unusual situations until NASA asked them to stop that too. Houston had no sense of humor sometimes.

The storm had occurred mid-day Houston time and all of the news networks covered it. Other networks put a crawler on their feeds giving updates, and the evening news was all about Watney sleeping through a danger the rest of NASA was quite concerned about. Annie fed the image of Mark being nonchalant in the face of possible death and much of the public ate it up. Fox of course wondered why we were paying taxes for people asleep on the job.

It had been scheduled for some time that on that evening several of the crews' mothers were to be interviewed on CNN. The network had gathered Mrs. Park, Mrs. Watney, Mrs. Johannson and Rick's wife, Marissa. NASA had briefed all of them on topics likely to arise and what topics to avoid all together. The crews on both ships gathered to watch it on the feed and it was a festive evening. One topic Park, Watney and Johannson had been told to avoid was whether their children knew each other before launch. NASA was unaware of their past relationships but was concerned about the image of the program. Any personal relationship was problematic. That Mindy, Beth and Dana had all met the Watney's in Chicago in the past would be thing of nightmares to Annie Montrose. It came up of course, but Mrs. Park handled it with ease.

"Well, all of them were in cadet classes at more or less the same time, and it is really a small community so maybe they did, but Mindy has never mentioned it."

"What about you Mrs. Watney, has Mark ever mentioned knowing his crew before the launch?"

"Oh, Mark talks about them all the time when he writes. It's all he talks about, how great they all are and how he admires them, on both ships. He hardly ever mentions himself or how he is doing, but he brags about every single one of his crew mates." Mrs. Watney deftly replied.

"What do you think about your son sleeping through the storm today? NASA reports he nodded off at the beginning and slept through it all. Would you call that bravery or something else?"

"Oh, that's just Mark. He fixes what he can, deals with what he can't, and when it is under the control of his shipmates, he leaves it to them. I don't think it is either, I think it just shows how much trust he puts in the crew and NASA. Mark would do anything for any of the people of Victoria or Ares. He... well, he is a very brave boy, that's something we have always been proud and terrified of."

"How so?"

"Has your son ever called you in the evening when you thought he was doing relief work for the Peace Corps and told you he was signing up to be an astronaut?"

"No."

"It would be hard to explain then." Mrs. Watney said kindly. "His father and I just wish he would find a nice girl and settle down."

"Mindy is single" Mrs Park laughed.

"So is Beth!" Mrs. Johannson exclaimed with glee.

"I just wish Rick would settle down." Marissa smiled.

Two ships of astronauts and most of Mission Control gasped at this exchange.

"Mindy, it sounds like your mother has it all worked out" Anna said.

"Yeah, she would, but I don't think she really cares if I marry or even settle down though, she just wants grand babies to spoil. A string of drunken one night stands and she would be happy. Besides, Mark has to sort out his business first."

"With Beth?" Anna asked.

"With... everybody! You, Dana, Beth, Missy... sorry commander but it's true and god knows who else is out there." Mindy grinned, enjoying Mark's discomfort at the conversation.

"Well I think I'm sorted out. Bob and I are going to try to make it work." Lewis replied.

"He's still a jerk." Mark said. He had not forgotten his feelings for Missy and the close quarters and enforced celibacy only made his yearning to be with her stronger.

"Yeah, but he's my jerk. He acted selfishly when he filed for divorce, but I get that; I've been gone too long and it's not fair. So, I don't want to be as selfish and petty as he was. I'm better than that, and I have to try. I... guess I just don't want to fail at marriage. I've never really failed at anything and I don't want to start."

"You deserve better." Mark said.

"Yeah I probably do. Be that as it may, I have to try Mark. You understand, don't you? I really didn't want to have this conversation in front of everyone."

"Yeah, sorry, but you still deserve better. I hope you make his life as miserable as he has made you. I mean, without being petty and selfish." Mark grinned.

"Well there ya go Mark, now it's just Beth, Anna, Dana and god knows who else before mom gets her way!" Mindy giggled, pressing the subject.

"Oh, no worries from me, Mark is great, but I'm on a career track with NASA and the Air Force and when we split our relationship didn't fit that, and it still doesn't. If I wasn't hoping for command of Ares V, well... Mark and I really only clicked in the bedroom. Great guy, love you to death Mark, but I don't see it. Do you?"

"I was wondering about that. So, everyone else will know, Anna is the only person I've been involved with that hasn't had that conversation with me, uh, that needs to. I was beginning to wonder why, but yeah, you're right. We broke up for the right reasons. Love you til I die, but... You want to go back to Mars? Tha' fuck?"

"It's all I've wanted for a long time, to command a Mars mission. I'm not Missy or Mindy, but I think I'm ready."

"You're more than ready. I'll make the recommendation. Anytime." Missy said.

"Me too. In a heartbeat. Well Mark, sounds like we're clearing up your social calendar. Now it's down to" Mindy said before Mark interrupted.

"It's down to me, and what I want to do. NASA and Mars don't get to control that. And there is, so you'll know, no 'god only knows' so it's really just you and Beth. Dana has other plans."

"Oh? Dana did you tell Mark something you haven't told us?" Anna giggled.

"No, I figured it out. I'm smart. Really smart. One of the best brains." Mark said referencing a quote from a very stupid man from recent history.

"Care to fill us in?"

"Not my story to tell. I make gossip too much to spread it." Mark smiled.

"Dana, is there something you want to share?" Anna giggled.

"No, I mean, there is another party involved, he and I made promises, and I'm keeping it. It wouldn't be fair to"

"Chris?" Mindy asked, interrupting Dana.

"Why would you think that?" Dana replied.

"Well if it wasn't someone on Hermes it wouldn't matter if you talked about it. Rick and Alex are both married and seem happy. So that only leaves one person."

"Uh. I'm not talking about it."

Silence hung in the air until Missy spoke.

"I'm not assuming Mindy is right, but if she is, you two make a wonderful couple."

"Well, I'm not saying Mindy is wrong exactly" Dana smiled. "Chris and I met at medical symposium right after Mark and I split. Neither of us were assigned yet, but he had been accepted and a week or so later I was. So, we decided to keep that part of our lives private. I'm sorry, I guess I should have told you this before, back when you first arrived and we did all our true confessions, Mark you're great, but Chris and I, well we click. Anyway, I think Anna and I came to help you out and keep you safe from space bishes... But I have a boyfriend and Anna doesn't want one right now. So, you only have Mindy and Beth to fight over you. Good luck with that. My money's on Mindy. She's got more street cred. Beth is nice, but she would not throw the first punch, and Mindy probably knows how to make a prison shank out of a toothbrush."

"So you will know though Missy," Dana continued, "Chris and I are not going to act on our relationship. That was agreed when he found out I was launching with Victoria. And when we link up with Hermes, I am advising NASA I do not wish to be considered for any further missions. I will have over two years in space, over seven months on another planet. That's enough. It will be time for Chris and I to move on to the next phase. I already have the rock I want him to propose with. Mark gave it to me."

"Well, I've been rethinking that rule anyway, somewhat. We are way beyond what the mission was planned for. Sexuality may be a distraction, but so is pent up emotion. Some open displays of affection at least should be tolerated. Besides, sooner or later someone will have to be the first to have relations in space. I'm not saying its okay, but I might not notice it as long as it doesn't create problems. Also, every time I'm at the comm, Mark and Mindy, if they are working in the hab, turn off their bio sensors and comm sets. They think I don't notice but..." Missy said.

"Been there, done that, but we don't turn off our bios and comms, the hab is radio proof and doesn't have a headset link like the one Ares III had before the wind destroyed it. I promise you, nothing has gone on like that." Mark said.

"It really hasn't Missy. We promised you and we have kept that promise.

"Oh, I didn't realize that, I suppose I should have. I thought I was just looking the other way. Oh, I owe you both an apology. And hush Watney you know what I mean about firsts... Hey! That is a first isn't it? But that's low gravity, not zero." Missy laughed. "Dale Roberts may have been the first to set foot here but"

"Geez he is a pompous jerk" Anna said.

"I'm up for zero gravity if you are. For science!" Mark quipped.

"Science!" Anna exclaimed.

"Hush Mark. You, Beth and Mindy will have to work that out. Or maybe Chris and Dana will... Oh god! My ship is going to be a giant space orgy! And true Anna, Roberts is a jerk, but what I was going to say is Ares III is the first mission to find something worthwhile to do here." Missy laughed.

"Should I log that? For posterity?" Mindy asked.

"Better not."

"What about the giant space orgy proposal?"

"Let's save that too" Missy laughed.

"Yeah, save it for the film adaptation." Anna said.

"I'm sure there are already several of those, but NASA has the porn channels blocked."

"They never get the science right anyway."

"True."

"Why are we talking about this?" Mindy asked Dana and Anna.

"Oh, you want me to change the subject, uh, okay. You don't believe the stories about Roberts and Caroline St. Ives?" Dana asked.

"No, she doesn't like guys, I mean not that way. She's into women exclusively, nothing wrong with that but I have it on good authority she shot him down, and everyone else on the crew." Mark said.

"I thought you didn't gossip Mark" Mindy said.

"For Roberts I'll make an exception. Uh, and it's a firsthand experience thing."

"Good lord Mark, that's amazing. Speaking of gossip Mark, sooner or later someone will study the Ares III photos and figure out that you coded the Victoria crew names well before they were announced. Any idea how you're going to explain that?" Missy asked.

"Uh, didn't you get the names suggested in a back channel well before the announcement? Oh, and what is amazing?" Mark replied with a wink.

"I'm sure I must have. That takes care of the press, but what about NASA? And it's amazing there is a woman at NASA you haven't slept with. There is a woman in Houston who actually refused the man ho." Missy replied.

"Well tell them I'm crazy and just pulled names out of thin air. It's a man ho thing. I wanted to impress them when I got back to Houston." Mark grinned.

"I don't think that will work."

"They didn't even notice the stones until Kay Kay pointed them out. I wouldn't worry too much." 


	19. Chapter 19

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 19**

"Hey, slide over" Mark heard Mindy say as he woke in the middle of the night.

"Uh, what's up?" He said, only half awake.

"Just... I want to sleep up here tonight. With you. If that... If you want to."

"Oh" Mark said as moved over to make room.

"Since Missy lifted her ban I... well, the best night of rest I have gotten since I left Earth was the night you arrived, and we all piled up together. I... well it would be worth the walk of shame I just took to have you hold me all night."

"Just hold?"

"Uh, for now, that's the only expectation I have. I mean, we promised Beth we wouldn't be, uh, that we weren't, so I..."

"I get it, come on, there's plenty of room. Honestly I don't know how you sleep on those cots."

"They aren't so bad. Better than being in a bag floating around. Missy says the bunks on Hermes aren't as bad as the cots, and that the only good thing about sleeping in the rover was that you were there."

"Oh, so I'm just a way to get a better night's sleep then. Got it."

"No Mark, you know better than... oh, you were kidding. Look if you want to, well, I'm open to it I just think that"

"No, I understand. It's okay. We really have a lot of catching up to do I guess, well that's not it, I guess I understand about the whole Beth/Mindy/Mark thing. I'm conflicted too, not about Beth and Mindy, but about keeping our promise, you know... It is nice having you here with me." Mark replied as he stretched his arm across Mindy's taunt body and held her close.

"You wanna talk?" Mark finally asked.

"No. I just want to sleep. In the arms of the guy I love, knowing I'm as safe and loved as I can be" Mindy replied as she rolled toward him and kissed him softly.

"Okay."

The next morning only Anna was awake when Mindy and Mark descended from the command area.

"Well Mindy, you look well rested. Mark, you seem tired, what's wrong?" Anna smirked.

"Best I've slept since before Ares III left Earth." Mindy smiled.

"I can see that. Poor Mark, are you still worn out?" Anna giggled.

"I didn't sleep a wink."

"Hmm, you mean you... Mark, you really should make sure your partner is awake, that's just, well, creepy at least."

"Huh? No, we didn't do anything like that." Mark said.

"Oh sure." Anna grinned even more.

"You would have heard; Mindy can be quite loud."

"Hush Mark, that's TMI, and no, really we didn't. We promised Beth we weren't doing anything and" Mindy started to say before Missy called out from her bunk.

"What the fuck is wrong with you two? I lift a ban and you two waste it."

"We made Beth a promise. We are keeping it, and I didn't sleep because I just wanted to, uh, well I watched Mindy sleep all night" Mark said.

"That's more creepy Mark" Anna laughed.

"No, it's really kinda sweet in context, and creepy I guess out of it. It's 'sweepy,'" Mindy smiled, "and I really did sleep great for once, you really should have gotten some rest though Mark. I'm sorry, if I had known you didn't sleep, I would have... well, I don't know what I could have done about that."

"I'm sure you could have thought of something" Anna replied.

"'Mark Watney, is he a libertine or a guy that's too nice?' should be the topic for our next weekly film." Dana mumbled from her bunk.

"Ohhh, that would be good. Until NASA asked us why that was the topic."

"Why didn't you sleep Watney?" Missy asked.

"You ever sleep with somebody you want to be with but can't?"

"I've slept with someone that wanted to be with me and I didn't want to be with him." Mindy smiled.

"Me too. But I'm married to him." Missy said as she got out of her bunk and went straight for coffee.

"Yeah, but that wasn't last night Mindy, I mean, I don't think it was, and if it were you wouldn't have slept either would you?"

"Uh, no. That definitely wasn't last night." Mindy smiled as she reached for the first red drink and breakfast pouch she found.

"Mark, as caught up as we are, you can take the day off if you like." Missy said.

It was true, having done all the work of Ares III and IV, and all the extra work NASA had developed, the crew had spent the last two weeks at the edge of the crater, taking samples as they descended the wall. Although from Earth the crater walls appeared quite steep, at the edge the wall tapered down and was easily descended and ascended. The EVA cartridges would not allow the crew to cover the entire depth, however samples recovered from two hundred meters were within safe reach. Soil absorption rates was measured at all levels, and although they lacked the equipment to test water flow rates in reduced gravity, a stop watch and a pile of dirt in the botany hab many of the experiments were roughly simulated. Mark and Mindy had even had time to make more thermite devices to ignite in celebration of leaving Mars, but Missy ordered them not to set them off. Mark hoped he remembered to let the next crew know they were stored in the botany hab.

"I'll probably get something to eat and crash again. I'm beat." Mark replied.

"Well before you do, we were going to meet this morning to plan out the weekly. Since we have a lot of time to shoot it, and it may be our last from Mars, I'd like to go big."

"Can I blow up the big rock?" Mark smiled. He had sugar, liquid oxygen and several thermite devices already made up in the botany hab for what he hoped would be a sendoff fire works display but so far had not talked Missy into it.

"No." Missy said, "and no to more thermite. We've been over that."

"I'm out of ideas then. But please, not another canned interview."

"I'm really starting to hate NASA questions. Every time we do one it's a snooze fest." Dana said.

"I want to do gymnastics."

"What?" Everyone except Anna said as they stared at her.

"Gymnastics. I cheered in High School and at the Academy, and the gravity here is so much less, and there should be room in the botany hab, plus it is tall enough inside."

"That might be fun, but how would we work it in?"

"Well, we could tell NASA to ask about it."

"Right, because..."

"That would work. Let's tell Houston and Annie we wrote our own questions this time and we want Kay Kay to read them." Mindy suggested. Kay Kay had appeared in several of the crew's films before both because the crew adored her and as a reach out to other middle and high school kids by NASA. This, and a nearly daily email to and from the crew had bonded her to the group.

All agreed this was a great idea as they were tired of the same questions being asked repeatedly 'How do you go to the bathroom in space?' and 'Wwhat do you do when you're aren't working?' got old pretty fast.

"That and 'Have you found any life on Mars?'"

"I have an idea for that if you want." Missy said, and as a result a spare mattress was ripped apart and dyed with red drink to make fill a box with fake Mars rocks. A hole was cut in the bottom, and as Mark and Dana explained that no large life forms had been found and given the environment none would be no matter what sci fi movies said, Missy reached a sock puppet through from the bottom. The sock had a face drawn on it by Mindy and looked around a few times before sinking back into the rocks. Mark and Dana pretended to not see it, until Watney stepped close enough to the prop and Missy grabbed him while Dana screamed. The camera went black and when it returned, Mark and Dana stood stiff in front of the prop with vacant stares declaring there was absolutely no life on Mars and that they could not wait to return to Earth to bite their friends.

Of course, NASA hated this and made them add another segment where they admitted they were jesting so as to not terrify children. Government agencies are kill-joys sometimes. NASA did like Anna's gymnastics as her hang time and elevation demonstrated in an interesting way the reduced gravity and that segment was expanded.

Finally, Kay Kay asked Mark a question she had written herself as he sat in the com with his crew mates.

"Mark, how does it feel to be a hero?"

"I have no idea Kay Kay. You would have to ask someone else that. See, well, okay look. Let's say there are six people on the second floor of a house, and it catches fire. Four get out, two get stranded by the flames. Now, they do all they can to survive, and are doing okay. Three people walking down the street see this, rush in and join them to help them survive and get out. Then the four that originally got out do something almost unthinkable. They turn around and go back in. They go back into the burning house, to make sure everyone gets out. Now, the two that were there all along are, well, survivors. The heroes are those three that didn't ever have to be there, and those four that came back. Ask them how it feels to be a hero, they can answer. I have no idea."

Missy protested that Mark's work had kept them alive and Mark pointed out that her work had as well, but Annie Montrose cut all that out in editing and let Mark's words hang in the air as the show went to commercial. Interest in the mission had grown again and Mark's reply had the sort of humble courage that would further the image of the crew and mission to the public in Annie's mind. In Mark's mind, it was just the truth.

Annie also cut out a bit where Mark, Dana and Missy claimed that eating veggies grown on Mars had given them the abilities to fly and turn invisible, but she saved it for use in a later blooper reel show.

The crew on Orion III were for the most part ready to go. There was realistically no work left to be done, even the second harvest and third planting were done. Small bottles of the appropriate pollen types were loaded into the misting system to be triggered on a timer, or if need be, by remote from either Hermes or Earth. In actuality no one was particularly excited about the third crop as it would never be harvested and only measured via long distance, and all the research that could be done would be performed on the already stored samples. To make room for the agricultural samples a large amount of food and water was stored in the botany hab for use by the next crew. Victoria had launched with four and a half years supply for the five astronauts as when loaded no one knew when Hermes might return. As Hermes reported being low on both coffee and red drink, none of this was left behind.

On the Hermes excitement grew as they approached Mars. In just a few weeks they would be reunited with Lewis and Watney, and linked up with Victoria I. An Orion craft had never docked with the Hermes although docking rings had been universal since Soyez. The power of the Orion craft was the only issue. As it was designed to launch both from Mars and then on a return trajectory to Earth, its designed orbital altitude was much higher than the Hermes would normally orbit Mars at. Adjustments had to be made to orbit at an appropriate altitude, but Astrodynamics in Houston, Alex and Beth were able to work it all out with Anna and Mindy. This left Victoria I with a very short launch window, and one that would not repeat for days given the length and ellipses of the Hermes orbit, but that wasn't seen as a problem.

Several dry runs had revealed no problems and all the systems were in order. The main engines on Orion III pumped fuel, JP1, oxygen, and hydrogen into the cone of the rocket and the initial ignition was provide by three small engines that pumped hydrogen and oxygen past spark generators. The fire from the smaller engines ignited the larger and compression in the combustion chamber was achieved. This was similar to the MAVs and Apollo ascent Modules and had never failed. Of course, on the Orion series, it had never been attempted on an engine exposed to the vast temperature differences of Mars, or the composition of its atmosphere. Mindy, with Missy's approval, planned to have the ship secured for launch, except one toilet, at least twelve hours in advance. The last three hours would be spent fully secured and in the command section of the craft. It would make for a boring last day on Mars, but practically guaranteed a safe launch.

Practically, and there are no boring days on Mars. 


	20. Chapter 20

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 20**

The day had arrived, and Mission Control was stuffed with the full staffs of two ships and missions. Even with all the staff, everyone was busy checking and rechecking everything from telemetry to the weather on Mars. Communication systems were constantly checked, and information flowed between Houston and both ships. It made for a busy evening in Houston, a busy afternoon on Mars, and a busy middle of the night on Hermes.

The press gallery had limited space, but Montrose had made sure there was room for Kay Kay, who she had flown in so as to report on the launch and recovery for the audience of the NASA press videos. Her reactions were filmed for the report and she was given access to a telemetry screen that had only the most basic data. Mitch Henderson took time the day before to show her what the data meant, including the bio-monitors for each astronaut which gave no detail other than an icon like the ones on the crew's HUDs that merely showed that a signal was being received, the basic timers for the two ships, and altitude and distance information. Ratings were good, and the public's interest renewed as launch approached. Kay Kay's father waited with her, while her mother was in the family room that was full of all the families from both crews, as well as Irene and her assistants in case something went terribly wrong.

Mark and Dana had little to do, and Missy not much more. Mindy and Anna did the talking with Hermes and Houston, with Missy occasionally helping with the Houston traffic. The plan called for Victoria I to launch just as Hermes was going around the dark side of Mars, then once in orbit Hermes would catch up to the ship. Hermes would then splay off into a long elliptical orbit taking several days to return to near Mars before accelerating around and returning to Earth. Orion III would have to launch within a window of about 15 minutes in order to make this possible, which was longer than many launch windows on Earth had been for missions in the past. Still, it left little room for error. Like the MAV, Orion III had spent its time on Mars making maneuvering fuel, but its main engines would run on material brought on its trip from Earth. It had enough to return to Earth by itself, but that was not considered realistic unless a total failure to link up occurred.

Finally, Rick sent the message all had waited for.

"Victoria I, Hermes Actual. On my mark optimal launch window of 14:52 to begin in 30 seconds. Mark. Copy."

"Copy Hermes. Victoria I, Orion III Park, launch window in 23, 22..." Mindy began to count down as everyone aboard shifted their helmets to press against the towels all had stuffed behind their necks. At the end of the count, Mindy radioed back.

"Hermes, Houston, Victoria I Park, countdown to launch in 30 seconds." A half minute later she began a 10 second countdown, Anna threw the three switches to begin the ignition sequence and...

Nothing happened.

After a few seconds of hearing the ignition motors hiss, Mindy ordered Anna to shut them down.

"Houston be advised. Launch failed. Repeat, launch failed. Ignition engines failed to ignite. Tracing the problem now. Advise Hermes. Copy."

"What happened?" Missy demanded.

"The ignition motors didn't light, so there was nothing to light the mains. We don't have enough fuel to run the ignition motors forever, so we shut them down. The bus... it shows there is power but... oh shit."

"What?"

"They are lit by small spark gaps... that's where the failure is." Mindy said as she tracked the problem on screen to the end of the wiring harness.

"Can you fix it?"

"No."

"Work around?"

"No, either there... it is like someone took the spark plugs to our engines away. Probably sitting in the atmosphere here and the temperature differentials corroded and ... shit."

"So, you need a spark and can't make one?" Missy asked.

"Not... not in the time we have. Oh god."

"Calm down. Work the problem. Ideas people." Missy said.

"How long do we have?" Mark asked.

"13 and a half minutes."

"And how much fuel do you have for the ignition motors?"

"Oh, a minute at least, probably two but without"

"So you can idle for a minute before you engage the mains?"

"Yes but"

"And you just need a spark or fire?" Mark asked.

"Yes but... no Mark, that's" Mindy started to say.

"Is the only choice we have. It would take too long to get the Rover cable and cut it, and I don't have anything here to cut it with easily. Besides, I can make it back in two or three minutes. I can make it back in half a minute each way. I might not get back to my seat, but I can get back and cycle through the air lock before you engage. It will work. I can lash to a cot downstairs until we break gravity, then come back up, or if I have time, just come back up. Give me a launch count and I will know which to do. I want out of here." Mark said as he un-strapped himself.

"What are you two talking about?" Missy demanded.

"Thermite. We made some for our going away celebration, good thing too or we would be stuck on Mars." Watney grinned as he practically jumped down to the main level."

"Watney!" Missy shouted.

"Its.. its all we have. Hermes can't hang around, and we don't have another way to make a spark in, uh, 13 minutes." Mindy said, her face revealing her stress and worry. "Anna, after the ignition motors light can you idle them down to give Mark more time?"

"Uh, yeah, I can get him probably three and a half to four minutes by reducing the fuel pressure. You're not seriously going to"

"Houston, Orion III, Park. Be advised we are going to try manual ignition of a starter motor using remote device. Hold for more information" Mindy said.

"Hurry Mark." Mindy said. By this time Mark had already cycled through the air lock and was skipping, the fastest way to sprint in low gravity, to the botany hab.

It was a time Missy was glad she wasn't making orders. The ship and its flight belonged to Mindy, but she knew it was the right decision, the best one to give them the best chance of not being stranded indefinitely or wasting all their research by going to the MAV. Missy didn't have to imagine what Mindy was going through.

Mark was actually happy to finally get to set off another thermite device. They didn't explode, they just used magnesium and a bit of LOX to ignite a reaction whereby the oxygen from the ferris oxide on the rocks transferred to the aluminum. This released an incredible amount of heat and sparks but the pressure wasn't significant enough to cause more than an initial pop. Even if the thermite didn't react, the magnesium would ignite and that alone should be enough to cause fire to the starter motor's fuel. Watney already knew which of the ones he had made with Mindy he was going to use as it had the most magnesium and was certain to light if only for that reason.

Mark cycled through the hab airlock, this took a half minute so on the way out he simply left the outer door open, unlike on the ship, it didn't close automatically. When it came to get off Mars or risking his plants, the plants could die. They would be protected by the inner door, unless it failed sometime in the future. Mark crammed the cut end of the long cable into the container, then did the low gravity skip back to Orion III. The cowling came down to just about a foot above the ground and Mark placed the device under, weighing it down with a rock to keep it from coming out as he returned to the hab to plug it in. Had Mark not been wearing his EVA he would have known there was a problem, but of course, in an EVA you can't smell the air outside, or feel the slight breeze from underneath the cowling.

"Mindy, Anna, I'm about to connect the power, you ready?"

"Connect on my Mark, uh, Watney. 1. 2. 3. Mark!" Anna shouted as she turned on the ignition motors.

Mark connected the power and was about to sprint to the ship, but fate intervened.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a cloud of vaporized JP1 from the previous launch attempt, as well as the O2 and Hydrogen from the ignition motors that had collected under the cowling, trapped there by being warmer than the surrounding atmosphere, ignited.

Watney stared as a side panel from the cowling blew away. A shock wave was coming towards him as he gasped, wondering what had gone wrong.

The shock went through the ship but caused no damage. The explosion wasn't compressed enough to harm the ship as its energy blew out the sides of the cowling. It did tell the gyroscopic leveling systems that the ship was tilting, although it wasn't, and in an instant the system believed the ship was about to fall. The safety system kicked in without Anna or Mindy doing anything, and the main engines fired, slinging the Orion III into lift off. The detachable stairway blew off and flew toward Watney.

When Orion III was but a few hundred meters above Mars, Watney's bio monitor icon disappeared from everyone's HUDs, and the same signal was sent to Houston.

"Nooooooo!" Kay Kay screamed when the telemetry came in.

Henderson saw it at the same time, heard Kay Kay scream, and felt like someone had kicked him in the gut.

"Annie, take her to the family room" then he turned to his assistant and ordered "Shut the doors."  
The standard signal that was given when a catastrophe had occurred.

Henderson knew, Kay Kay knew, and everyone else figured it out quickly.

Mark Watney was dead. Incinerated by the lift off of Orion III.


	21. Chapter 21

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 21**

"Nooooooo!" Kay Kay screamed when the telemetry came in.

Henderson saw it at the same time, heard the girl that was about his grandson's age scream through the glass separating Mission Control and the press gallery, and felt like someone had kicked him in the gut.

"Annie, take her to the family room" then he turned to his assistant and ordered "Shut the doors."  
The standard signal that was given when a catastrophe had occurred.

That had happened three minutes before, and as Henderson watched Annie Montrose led her protege and the crew's best friend on Earth away to the family room, promising that she would know something definite as soon as NASA did.

Both Henderson and Montrose had gone their entire careers without losing an astronaut, but both were mentally prepared, as well as one could be, for its inevitable occurrence. Missy and Mark's original stranding had been like a practice run and now it seemed prophetic that Mark had predicted in the stone at Ares III that he would die on Mars. Space was dangerous, that was a fact. Everyone on board, or in Ground Control, or even employed at NASA knew it could happen. There were contingency plans and red folder speeches written for every occasion in advance. Every occasion except having your heart broken by the cries of a 15 year old, telling you "No! He's alive! You can't give up!"

Now, all that there was to do was let Annie handle the press and figure out what happened. Mentally she was stuck in "oh c'mon" mode and simply could not believe this was happening all over again.

Communication with Orion III had been sterile. Park sent word that craft had auto launched, in the proper launch window, at almost the perfect time for rendezvousing with Hermes, and that four astronauts were on board. From the bio telemetry Houston and Hermes both knew who was missing. The cross talk with Hermes was all about guiding the ship to docking. Questions about what happened went unanswered.

"Rachel, when will we have Satcom photos of the launch site?" Henderson asked Mindy Park's best friend from her old job. Rachel had taken over Mindy's 'angel in the sky' role when Park was promoted back into space.

"Coming in now sir."

"Put it up here" Henderson ordered as he looked at the screen in front of him. The picture was coming from Mars and appeared slowly. It was a high-resolution photo from ESA Seeker VI, and it took several seconds for it to fill his monitor while Kapoor and Sanders looked over his shoulders. Neither had spoken. They were the Director of Mars missions and NASA respectively, but Mission Control was Henderson's domain.

Einstein would have loved that things were taking place simultaneously yet still minutes apart. The Orion III crew got the telemetry data first, but the satellite data last. The Hermes got the telemetry data second, only moments after Orion, and satellite data first as it was relayed to it by the satellites orbiting Mars. Houston got telemetry last and the satellite images before Orion III, but had a staff of engineers and technicians to make sense of it first.

On Orion III Anna gasped as Watney's bio-monitor signal went dead and it dawned on all aboard that their crew mate was gone. A few moments after Mindy gave the initial report Missy gave her only order of the flight.

"Fly the mission Washburn, Park get us to Hermes. We will grieve when we are there. Mark sacrificed himself to get us off Mars. We won't dishonor him by wasting the opportunity. I need a channel to Hermes and Houston please Mindy."

The G force of liftoff made most actions impossible, but once gravity was broken Mindy was able to comply. "Line is open Commander."

"Houston,... Hermes, Ares III Actual. Liftoff of Orion III Victoria I has occurred but at great cost. We are working the flight and will provide detailed information at docking with Hermes. Ares III Actual. Out."

By the time this message reached Houston, Mitch Henderson was already starting to look at the photos of the launch area, Kay Kay was wailing as her father and Annie led her to the family room, and Mark's parents were trying to catch their breath as all the other families were either stunned or beginning to console them.

"Well, that's interesting." Mitch said as he scanned the first image.

"Looks like snow, I guess from the hydrox engines." Kapoor said.

"Hab looks solid, can we tell if it is standing or is that a flat image?" Teddy asked.

"It looks good, look, you can see the shadows beside it, and it was nearly a hundred meters from the launch, and yeah, I'm guessing that's snow from the hydrox. Didn't get all the way to the botany hab, so my guess would be the hab is fine. We should have Satcom track its sublimation rate but, no, what is interesting is what isn't there." Mitch said as he keyed his headset.

"AD, do a calculation to determine how much maneuvering fuel it would take for Hermes to fall into a 275 k orbit."

"We know that one already sir, all of it. That was considered primarily but figuring Orion III's capabilities it didn't become necessary. If we needed a lower orbit we should have made an inflight adjustment a week ago at least, Orion III could link up anywhere between Mars and here."

"Copy AD. Figure it using the maneuvering thrusters on Orion III to power both craft instead. Would it have enough fuel to push Hermes down after the link, and would Hermes be able to regain speed to break orbit in an expedient manner and reasonable time frame."

"What? Why?"

"Because the Mission Director just asked to you very nicely. And the Director of Mars Missions is asking too." Venkat Kapoor said into his own headset. "Get that information in 15 minutes and shoot it and the maneuver to Hermes. Also check with JPL to see if that is even possible so far as strain on the Hermes is concerned."

Teddy was unclear what this was about, as he still had not determined what Venkat and Mitch had seen on the image, but as much as he didn't like Mitch personally, he knew him to be a quick thinker and a good mission director.

"What the fuck?" Beth asked as Hermes received the first telemetry from Orion III relayed by satellite.

"What is it" Rick asked. He was busy flying the ship and monitoring its orbit. Alex was at the station beside Beth watching the symbols of the two ships as they began to close on each other in 4 dimensions and tracking that while keep Rick apprised of any needed corrections, calling out distances and intervals, which was a full-time job. In addition to the satellite and radio telemetry, they were getting radar and optical tracking info, and all were fed into the nav system to coordinate the rendezvous. Neither Rick nor Alex had time to look up at the rest of the screen.

"It's Mark. He... He's not there." Beth gasped as it dawned on her what it meant.

"Where is..." Alex started to ask.

"He's not anywhere." Beth answered as Commander Lewis' transmission came over their headsets.

"Oh my god! He's dead?" Beth could barely speak. The realization knocked the wind out of her as her eyes exploded with tears.

"Copy Ares III Actual. Let's get you here. That is what is our focus at the moment." Rick said before killing his mic.

"Beth, I know... can you keep it together a few more minutes?" Rick gasped as his own eyes filled with tears for his fallen friend.

"Ya... yes."

"Come on Beth, we need you. Vic I needs you. Put it in the back of your mind. We will get through this, let's get Orion to dock. Then I'll collapse with you" Alex added, trying to be as supportive as possible, then remembering that Chris was in airlock one as the recovery specialist.

"You should tell Chris" Alex suggested to Rick.

"Chris, you okay back there?" Rick asked.

"Yeah. Let's get them home."

"Chris, there was a problem with the launch. Mark isn't on board and we think he is lost. I... Can you do the link up?"

"Copy. Yes, I got it. Any idea what happened?"

"None yet. Commander Lewis will fill us in, uh, in about 15 minutes. Listen up everyone, let's keep it together. It's what Mark would want." Rick said.

"He probably would want to be on the fucking ship" Alex thought to himself.

The time passed in near silence, except for Beth and Mindy walking Rick and Anna through the delicate telemetry of the flight to link up and ultimately magnetically guided docking.

Back at Houston, in the family room, it was quite a bit noisier. Kay Kay was inconsolable, and Irene thought about taking her somewhere that she might not disturb the Watneys, who were themselves equally distraught. The other families comforted them as well as they could, as did the counselors provided by Irene's work group. Word came to give "Momma Watney" as she was known to NASA management, whatever she wanted or needed. At that moment, Momma Watney seemed to need to hug Kay Kay and talk with her. Consoling Kay Kay gave Mrs. Watney something to do and focus on. Irene could only eavesdrop on the conversation.

"I tried to tell them he's alive, but they wouldn't listen!"

"You think he's alive? Tell you a secret, so do I" Mrs. Watney told her.

"You do?"

"Marks solved everything Mars threw at him so far, why couldn't he solve this? You wait and see. After all he's been through, he's not going to miss his ride without a good reason."

"I know right?" Kay Kay replied, gratified that someone would listen to her.

"Right, so let's just wait here and see what happened. Its out of our hands anyway. Mark may seem funny all the time, but he's the smartest boy this place ever saw. I know he adores you too, he talks about you all the time, did you know that?"

"No" Kay Kay wept.

"It's true. He talks about his crews and you. Never talks about himself. When you found his rock piles, he kept going on about how smart you were and how you solved it when no one else did. Now you watch, he's going to solve this when no one else could either."

"You think so?"

"You just have to have faith. You watch and see." Mrs Watney replied, although she had her doubts. It seemed like Mark's luck had finally ran out. She had been prepared for this for several years but could not stand to see the little girl suffer without hope. She couldn't do anything to help Mark or the crew, but she could give a child a ray of hope, even if there wasn't any.

This went on for several minutes and Irene was just about to break it up so their hopes wouldn't be dashed when a docent arrived.

Minutes before, down the hallway at Mission Control, Mitch Henderson had turned to one of the press docents, signaled him over, and directed him to retrieve the Watney's if they wanted to come to Mission Control, and Kay Kay whether she wanted to or not.

"You want the girl here?" Venkat asked.

"Yes. Annie will have a stroke if she misses it."

The ships docked perfectly, but Missy had Anna delay opening the door in the nose of Orion that they would travel through into Hermes.

"It has been an honor flying with you, given the circumstances I am stunned at how well each of you kept it together. Mark would want us to carry on and we shouldn't dishonor the gift of his life by sullying it with self-doubt or blame. Mindy, am I right in saying the ship launched from the tilt programming?"

"Yes, I should have..."

"There is no way you could have predicted that. Fair to say there was an explosion under the ship from the fuel that went out during the first launch try?"

"That's the only thing I can figure. I just don't know why it didn't dissipate."

"No wind, little atmosphere and it was warmer than the surrounding air that was there. The cowling must have held enough in to go off, then that sent a thump that tripped the stabilizing gyros and she launched."

"No way you could have predicted that Mindy. Don't you dare blame yourself. Mark would... Mark wouldn't want that." Missy said as she pulled Mindy into a tearful embrace. The crew came together as well as they could in the confined space and gave themselves a moment of humanity as they grieved for their lost friend.

Three solid taps were heard at the portal in the nose of the ship, fully forward in the com, the signal that Chris had opened his port and gone into the airlock to receive its crew. Missy released her embrace from Mindy and the crew separated, and then she nodded to Dana who was the lowest ranked member.

Dana opened the door, saw her love Chris and tearfully asked "Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted. Welcome to Hermes" Chris replied as he took Dana's hand and pulled her in, followed by the rest of Victoria I.

"Commander Martinez, Crew of Victoria I, uh, Lewis, Park, Washburn and Abernathy, safely aboard. Orion III secured at dock with three green lights confirmed."

"Confirm. Three lights. Welcome back Commander Lewis. The ship is yours." Rick replied.

"All crew to the green room please." Missy said over the intercom link, then looked at her Victoria I crew mates and added "Welcome to the Hermes. It's a bit roomier than you are accustomed to... uh, Chris would you take us to the Com?"

"Sure, right this way." Chris replied then led the group to the small meeting room aft of the command center. As the ship was completely weightless it was a quick trip, although all of Victoria I had to stop for barf bags along the way.

Missy knew the Hermes crew was full of questions and deserved all the information she had, and so she began.

"There was a primary ignition failure, probably the spark gaps corroded in the atmosphere, or they simply burned off the last time the mains were fired. There was no previous indication of this, our pre-launch systems tests showed nothing wrong. We didn't have either time or material for repair, but Mark had made some thermite devices he had wanted to set off for our weekly news reports. He volunteered to place one under the craft and set it off igniting the ignition rockets. The mains were off. We think a pocket of vaporized JP1, O2 and hydrogen were trapped under the cowling and detonated before Mark could return to the ship as planned, he should have had able time to return and strap in before we fired the mains. He was outside on the surface when the mains engaged due to a safety protocol in the programming. His bio sensor went dead within a second or so of the mains engaging. That's all we know right now. I know its hard, and its going to be miserable for all of us, but Mark saved us, the Victoria crew and me, and we need to honor that and earn it. Mark would want us to get home and live long and happy lives. I expect you to do your best. We need to rig for breaking orbit, but we will do a few observation passes first, his family deserves some closure, no matter how hard it is on us. I can't do any time off, but we will as soon as we break orbit. Mindy, Commander Park is now XO and will work up the roster. Rick, Beth, Alex, Chris... Thank you for coming back for us. I know Mark would thank you too. I am forever in your debt. I know we all need to weep, but right now we need to secure for travel and finish our job here. We will make time for anyone that needs it. Can we do this? Work together and get home?" Missy asked.

"Of course commander. The ship is yours. I think I can say for everyone, we're proud to be here with you." Rick said with everyone else nodding agreement.

"Beth, I need to send a message to Houston, can you record it so we can edit it first?"

"Yes" she gasped, then entered the appropriate commands and added "You're on."

Beth stared at her screen; her eyes full of tears. Everyone else wept with her as Missy recorded their announcement from Mars telling the world how Mark had died a hero, something Missy explained he never claimed to be, but always was.

Beth tried to focus on the screen in front of her that had all the information the sysop of the mission might need and tried not to listen to the description of Mark's demise again, but it was hopeless. She could barely see the screen and decided to ask to be relieved, for a few minutes at least, once Missy finished speaking. Maybe finally talking to Mindy face to face would help. She knew Mindy was hurting every bit as much as she was. Over the last few months they had developed a strong, if unusual, friendship and she felt closest to her of all her travel companions and...

"Why is that flashing?" Beth asked herself as she wiped her eyes dry to get a better look, just a new sub window opened with MAV information on it. It dawned on her in a moment what she was seeing, and she killed the recording of Missy's message.

The recording system cut out with an audible squawk that all heard, and Missy stared at her with pure anger in her eyes.

"Oh god Beth don't make me go through that again, it's hard enough without..."

"Commander, please, just a second. You need to look at this." 


	22. Chapter 22

**Sorry for not getting this out sooner, I try to stay several chapters ahead before publishing, but as the story winds down that gets to be difficult. I have had some unexpected real life stuff come up as well as a bunch of real life work too. I meant to mention this earlier, but a lot of references are made to and taken from other Martian stories I have read on here and enjoyed. Hopefully you will see this as a homage rather than the actual plagiarism that it is. Enjoy, and please comment. I hope to get another chapter out this week, but no promises.**

The Martians

Chapter 22

Kay Kay returned to Mission Control with her father holding one hand, her mother the other, a confused Annie Montrose leading the way, and the now 15-year old's face filled with tears. If she wore make up, and her mother didn't like for her to, it would have been all over her face. As it was, her eyes were so red they looked like they were nearly on fire. Her camera man was still following her, filming her reactions, which both parents and all the families found to be ghoulish.

The media in the press gallery saw as well and found NASA filming the child's reactions to be repulsive. The reporters had not been briefed but were able to discern from the activity and the radio traffic that something had gone horribly wrong. Many were giving live update reports with little to say, and the longer they were in the dark, the more embellishment occurred, at least with the video and radio media. The print media could wait for a story, radio and television could not, so they went with what they had to fill airtime. Nothing was made up, but all had their own expert discussing the event and none had a positive spin.

"Good, you're back. Did Momma and Mr. Watney decide to stay?"

"Irene thought it best. What's happening?" Annie answered.

"Nothing yet, hold off on briefing for a few minutes, but Kay-Kay, if you're sit right here" Henderson said patting his seat overlooking the room that he, Kapoor and Sanders were standing around, then looking at his watch, "in about three minutes we're going to get a message."

"Sit there? But... why?" Kay Kay asked, looking at what was clearly the most important chair in the room.

"Sorry Kalani but things are moving fast, and I don't have time for this. You're sitting here because it's the best seat in the house for what is coming next. You kept the faith. You earned the view." Mitch said as he unceremoniously reached under her arms, lifted the tiny girl up, and plopped her down in his seat. Her feet were now dangling two to three feet off the floor and she could see the entire room."

"What do you make of that photo Kay-Kay?" Mitch said, pointing at the satellite overhead image of the KK site that was now displayed on the main screen in the room.

"Is that the launch site? Is that... snow?"

"Very good. The Orion engines burn JP1, that's basically enriched kerosene, as well as hydrogen and oxygen so there is a lot of water created, and the force of the engines blows it around and it lands as snow, or ice, we can't say for sure yet, but it looks like snow doesn't it? Hang on." Mitch said as he, Teddy and Venkat listened to their headsets.

"Go ahead Satcom... Okay, as expected. No, I will send Kay-Kay in a second... copy that." Mitch said into his mic before turning back to Kay Kay, "Now, look close. What's missing?"

Kay Kay stared at the screen, her parents and around the room. She had heard Henderson's side of the conversation but was only vaguely aware of what Satcom was and wasn't clear at all what it had to do with her sitting in the Mission Control commander's seat. She nevertheless studied the photo and was confused about what she should be looking for. Her confusion would be cleared up momentarily as Mitch looked at this watch and said, "About a minute or so."

Only a few moments later Missy Lewis's voice came over the speakers. It was just before that when it finally dawned on Kay Kay what she was looking at and she gasped as her eyes practically bulged out of her head when she realized the implications of what she saw.

There was no body on the ground. Mark Watney wasn't laying dead on the surface of Mars.

Mission Control was nearly silent as the staff waited.

Mitch Henderson glanced again at his watch, an act of forced habit as every screen in the room showed the time, dropped two fingers in a chopping motion, looked at Kay Kay, Venkat and Teddy, then announced "Right about now."

Kay-Kay grinned at him and kicked her feet under the seat Mitch has placed her in minutes before in anticipation of what both were pretty sure was coming next.

"Houston, Ares III Actual. Lewis assuming command. We had a bit of a glitch in the Victoria One recovery and as you are aware, Watney was lost and presumed dead. We are happy to report that may have been in error. Ares IV MAV has just powered up and began transmitting his bio data. We are attempting to establish radio contact. Details to follow."

Mitch nodded at Kay Kay, then asked "Why don't you go tell Momma Watney and see if she wants a better view than the waiting room? Annie, that should make a much better story for the hounds."

Minutes before, on Hermes, Beth had begun transmissions..."Hermes Johansson, CQ KK MAV Watney. Copy,,. Hermes Johansson, CQ KK MAV Watney. Copy please... Hermes Johansson, CQ KK MAV Watney. Copy."

"Hey Beth. KK MAV, King of Mars, Watney. Reporting for duty. What did I miss? Did Vic I make it okay?"

"Hermes Johansson, Copy that KK Watney. Good to hear from you. Miss your ride again? Vic I is present. Orion III docked about 10 minutes ago without issue. Or you. Better have a good explanation. Commander Park is looking at me as if I shouldn't refer to you as 'Your Royal Highness.'"

"We actually just noticed you were gone Mark." Rick interrupted with a grin.

"Well yeah, not much for a botanist to do in flight. I can see that. Might as well just fire the mains and leave me on Mars."

"Status Watney? What happened?" Lewis demanded. Although she had always enjoyed the banter between Martinez and Watney, now just wasn't the time. Moreover, Watney didn't sound quite right.

"Uh, Hi Commander. Status. I'm on fucking Mars. In the MAV, hope you can tell me how to fly it up. Overall I'm. Alive. Ankle injury. When I saw you engage the mains I dove into the HAB airlock for shelter. The wind or shock wave slammed the outer door on my leg, just above ankle. Pain is... significant. Took Lortab from HAB med kit, still waiting for it to kick in. Improvised wrap using two layers of hab repair canvas, then filled with insulating foam. Made it to MAV on improvised crutch I cut out of watering apparatus supplies in hab. Can someone teach me to fly this thing? Glad you guys made it, either way. Copy."

"KK MAV, this is Hermes Martinez. That may not be necessary Watney. I landed it. I can fly it back. Alex, Commander Park, Major Washburn and Beth working up telemetry now. We are getting ready to pass back around far side from you. Switch to satellite com transfer on my mark." Rick said, now all business again.

"I powered the MAV up from the ladder and climbed with one leg. Currently in the launch seat. I don't think I can reach the comm system to switch. Catch you on the flip side. I'm not going anywhere apparently. Thanks."

"KK MAV, Johannsson here. I can make the switch remote. Houston has sent us the override codes. Vogel loading telemetry now. Copy?"

"Copy that."

"Mark, it may be a while. Telemetry calls for lower altitude than Hermes is currently at. Houston sent plan for that but might take a few orbits, but maybe this one. Its experimental. Will initiate before we return pass and know more on signal return. Copy?" Vogel added.

"Copy. Take your time, clearly I'm not going anywhere."

"Commander Lewis, we need to do this now or it may be days or weeks before we can get him off." Vogel said as he explained the NASA plan to retrieve that Henderson had ordered Astrodynamics to send up. Someone is going to have to fly the Orion, or at least its thrusters, to slow us down. Even then the plan wasn't complete, Alex and Beth would be required to fill in the details and Beth was already reviewing it to determine the flight times and launch windows.

"Okay, listen up everyone. Beth, you stay at station with Alex and work up the flight and recovery. Once you have the run time for the Orion thrusters, get it to Anna. Rick, stay right seat until Anna gets back. Anna, you have center once the orbit is established. Anna will pilot Hermes and you the MAV until recovery. Everyone else, we need to move all the samples and research from Orion to Hermes just in case. Anna, I can't order you to fly Orion, you know the risks, but"

"You don't have to, I volunteer" Anna replied as she rose and moved to return to Orion.

"Thanks. JPL says it will be fine," Missy said as she looked over the email outline of the plan, "but I don't think we should trust that. JPL isn't up here doing it. It's not like this has ever been tested. Once the ship is positioned, Rick will run the MAV launch and flight, Beth and Alex the telemetry and Commander Washburn will fly the Hermes. Mindy will call it, Chris, you and I will be Air lock 2 recovery. Dana, hang tight we don't know what shape Mark is really in. I need you to talk him through it. Everyone go, let's get Orion off loaded."

"Commander Washburn?" Anna asked.

"Field promotion, but you have the Orion III by yourself so that's your title now, and I'll make it stick. You wanted a cool NASA title, didn't you?"

The absence of gravity made moving the ton or so of research easy as the crew formed a bucket brigade throwing the sample boxes from the hold, thru the living quarters and into the com, where they were then sent into the Hermes and tossed into the weightlessness of the primary shaft. Dana strapped everything down lightly but quickly and then the food was tossed through as well. Dana demanded that Mark's personal bag not be forgotten, and it wasn't. Everything else stayed behind. The concern was that if Hermes didn't take to being pushed about by Orion at the dock, the strongest part of Hermes, it could be jettisoned, and Anna return to the ship via tether. No one really liked this idea, but it was all they had.

Orion III had the fuel and power to return to Earth on its own, and as a result Hermes was in a much higher orbit than it would have been to recover a MAV. The ship Watney was in couldn't reach it. Hermes lacked the maneuvering fuel to lower its orbit, although could have been in the appropriate orbit by making a small adjustment days or weeks before. It did have the flight fuel and Rick turned the mains in the direction of flight to begin the slow down, but it would not be enough without a push. The Herme's main engine simply wasn't designed to brake the ship over a short period. The Orion III was nearly full of maneuvering fuel as it had spent the better part of a year topping its tanks off on Mars. It was compressed and didn't burn, relying instead on the release of the pressure to provide thrust. NASA said it would have enough, and NASA also thought the strain would not break Hermes in two. Everyone was hoping NASA was right about both.

Due to the high orbit, it was decided to rotate the ship until Orion's navigational thrusters would be aimed to force Hermes closer to Mars. Lowering the orbit would have the effect of increasing the ship's speed, making recovery impossible, so once it was moving in the right direction, the ship would again be turned so that the same thrusters could be drained of fuel to slow it down. Astrodynamics had come up with this in but a few minutes, but the math had been checked several times and shown to be right by computers at Houston, JPL and now on Hermes. It had been considered that the Orion thrusters could be used to simply slow the Hermes down on its course, and letting gravity do the work of lowering the ship but that would have taken longer and had a higher risk of the Hermes crashing into the upper atmosphere before it could regain altitude with its main engine.

While the crew was emptying the Orion III, back at Houston Mission Control could only listen. The maneuver would need to be attempted on this orbit or could not be tried again until Hermes returned to Mars on the long elliptical orbit it had established. Lowering the craft now was imperative, especially as the nature and extent of Watney's injuries were unknown. Chris and Dana took turns glancing at his biometrics as they unloaded Orion, and both were concerned about his heart rate and blood pressure. Collectively it indicated that he might have bleeding, either internal to his injured leg, which could lead to a clot and embolism, or external into his EVA, which could cause him to bleed out. Either way, a launch would only make things worse, but there really was no choice. Dana talking to him didn't reveal much more information about his injuries, except that it was quite painful, and he wasn't happy talking to her, or anyone else of the Victoria crew.

None of these details were known to Kay-Kay as she ran down back down the hall to the family waiting area, this time with her camera man behind her and Annie following her. Generally, people didn't run at Mission Control and Annie was in heels, ignoring the press for the time being, so she did her best to keep up. When the security personnel guarding access to the room saw Kay Kay they were not sure what to do. Without Annie Montrose she had no special permission to enter, although they had seen her leave just minutes before. On the other hand, they were not about to shoot a diminutive 15-year-old who was running as fast as she could and grinning from ear to ear.

"Hold on just a second Miss"

"I'll be right back."

"But"

"Let her go!" the camera man said, although he had no authority in the matter as far as security was concerned. While the security officers pondered this Kay-Kay was through the door and on seeing Mrs. Watney began yelling.

"He's alive! He's on the MAV and they are going to get him home!" Kay-Kay shouted as everyone in the room turned to stare at her and she rushed into Mrs. Watney's waiting arms.

"I told you!"

"I know, you were right! We were right!"

The camera man caught it all.

Only then did Montrose go brief the press.


	23. Chapter 23

The Martians

Chapter 23

Rotating the Hermes, slowing it with Orion's thrusters, and getting it to fall into an appropriate altitude and velocity was tedious and difficult, but with Alex, Beth, Mindy, Anna and Rick working together it went off without a glitch. The launch of the MAV would not take place on this orbit, but the long elliptical orbit was much tighter now and a second launch window appeared approximately 45 minutes later.

Most of this time Mark was screaming in pain, still waiting for the Lortab to kick in, and wishing he had more. Both Dana and Chris admonished him to not move, and not take anything else as they had no idea how much he had consumed already and couldn't access his injuries until he was at Hermes. Dana and Chris tried to talk to him throughout, but it soon became clear he had no interest in talking to Dana, and with Chris had little to say. Ultimately Houston, having heard all this, opened a private channel and put both Mark's parents, a ground crew physician, Irene, several folks that knew him from Mission Control and, eventually, at Irene's suggestion, even Kay-Kay on the line.

The last seemed to work the best as Watney did not want to sound weak to his biggest fan. Kay-Kay had no idea what to say, and although the channel was private, she was sitting beside Mitch and in front of Kapoor and Sanders. It didn't really matter what she said according to the physician, she just needed to keep Watney awake so that he did not go into shock and potentially die. Mitch just told her to keep talking and whenever she seemed to be winding down would wave his hands to tell her to keep going.

"Hey Mark, it's me, Kay-Kay. I... I wanted to, well everyone down here is working really hard, it's amazing to watch it all coming together and... well, you got this. You totally got this. Mars sucks and you're leaving it in a few minutes. Hey! Did you know Earth and Mars are getting closer so your trip home is only going to be five months or so? That must be great after all the time you've been away. Don't forget, you owe me a trip around Kennedy Space Center. Dad says we're going to have a Chicago deep dish when you get back, but mom says they don't have those in Florida. We'll have pizza anyway. So yeah! Dad wants me to start looking at colleges, but I'm only a sophomore, well, I will be a junior in a couple of months. I could graduate early but mom says I need to stay through my senior year, live a high school life she says, go to the prom, stuff like that... ugh! I'm thinking about college on the west coast, I've never really been outside Hawaii, other than to Houston, and I love it there, but I think I want to see something else for a while, what do you think? I know I won't hear your answer for a few minutes, but keep that in mind, I really could use your advice."

Occasionally Mark would say something back and seemed more relaxed, at least his biometric readouts were normalizing, although still elevated. It was clear to all that were monitoring Watney's biometrics that his goth teen protege was doing more to keep him calm that anything else had, so she was asked to continue. Being out of things to talk about, she began babbling about school friends, music she was listening to and movies she liked.

While all this was going on a red shift tech noticed an intermittent signal on one of the MAV fuel cells. It appeared to be a mechanical glitch, and no NASA launch had ever occurred without something in their vast and complex systems giving a false reading. It was dutifully reported to Mission Control and relayed to Martinez on the Hermes.

"Commander, one of the sensors on fuel cell 4 of the MAV is showing it is both full and empty." Rick said.

"What? Is... bad sensor?" Mindy asked.

"Probably. Ship weight shows full, the other three sensors show full. This one does too, but it flashes off to show empty too. Probably a bad connection but..."

"But?" Mindy asked.

"Well, if it is empty, he might not get to us and I would have to use the landing thrusters to drop him back down to god knows where."

"Best guess?"

"It's full. Protocol says we wait and check, but we don't have anyone there that can check."

"Recommendation?" Mindy asked.

"Launch. But we may have to do an EVA to fix the Orion, top her off from our engines and food stores, and pilot it back down until it can make enough fuel to launch again. I don't think that will be the case, but... well, you're the launch command. Your call. I say go."

"Go. Mark trusts you Major, so do I." Mindy said as a new ulcer developed in her gut.

"Oh yeah, good to meet you by the way Commander. They made me a colonel last time on earth" Rick grinned, "but please, call me Rick."

"Good to meet you too Colonel, uh Rick, sorry, I'm just about at my wits end."

"I get that, we'll talk more after we get our boy back" Rick replied.

After Kay Kay spoke for about 30 minutes, Mitch looked at his watch then held up 10 fingers and every second took one down. Kay-Kay figured out why on about the 8th finger."

"Okay dude, looks like you're about to lift off, you got this, just listen to me, you got this, we're going to bring you home Mark, you got this!"

Kay-Kay talked about the liftoff, how the Cubs looked this year (Mark had turned his pen-pal into a fan many months before) and anything else that came to mind, including her new science teacher and friends from school she wanted him to meet. At the appropriate time, Houston finally got the signal that the MAV had successfully launched, and Kay-Kay heard Mark scream in agony as the g forces put several earth gravities of weight on his injury. Startled and feeling more angst than ever in her young emo life, Kay Kay fell silent.

Time seemed to stand still after the scream for a couple of minutes. The telemetry looked good as it came in and Watney's biometrics became off the chart again, but showed he was alive, if in agony. The fuel cell read normally as it's contents were consumed and it was written off as a glitch. The MAV speed and trajectory never varied from expectations.

"Kay-Kay, you want to try again? Irene? He should be breaking gravity about now."

"What do I say?"

"It doesn't really matter. He will be at dock in about 20 minutes, just give him something to think about and keep him talking" the Flight Director replied, then returned to his work of coordinating, or listening to the coordination, of the launch and recovery.

"So, yeah Mark, that was the worst of it, you should be out of gravity by the time you hear this. Sounds like you're hurting pretty bad, but... you're going to be okay. Doctor Dana and Beck will take good care of you. Hey! You were on the planet all by yourself, so you really are the King, right? Can I be a princess or something? Mom says we are going to Orlando when you get back because we're going to be in Florida anyway. I think all that is silly, but it might have been fun when I was a little kid, I don't know. It would be neat to tell those bishes I'm already a princess when"

"Kay-Kay!" Her mother admonished.

"Oh, sorry, mom doesn't like me to say bish. It's better than the other word though" Kay-Kay said. Kay-Kay kept talking with no response from Mark for several minutes, of course given the signal distance that was to be expected. Houston heard some cross talk between Hermes and Watney, but Mark's responses were limited. Finally, Houston got the message it had waited for.

"Houston, Hermes XO Park, be advised MAV has docked. Three green lights, Beck and Lewis retrieving Watney now. Will advise as to injuries when available."

Moments later, Mindy sent the message that set off cheers around the world.

"Houston Hermes XO be advised, nine, repeat, nine astronauts aboard. Confirmed by Beck and Lewis. We're coming home. Copy."

"Copy that Hermes. Outstanding job by all. Advise Watney condition when available and prepare to receive return trajectory telemetry."

Chris overrode the hatch controls on the MAV and advised Mark to stay put. The first view of his old friend Mark had was him entering through the hatch at the front of the MAV with a knife, which Beck used to cut away the straps holding Mark into the launch seat.

"Just stay put, we will lift you into Hermes and down to the med bay, don't move, got it?"

"Got it" Mark grimaced as Dana came in and assisted Chris. Once Watney was cut free they dragged him weightlessly through the hatch, then onto a stretcher, past Lewis, and in a minute were in the med bay, which at the moment was also weightless. As they brought him in Dana advised over the intercom their progress.

"We got him, going to med bay direct. Mark appears to be in a great deal of pain, can't see injury yet but his EVA is covered with HAB canvas and insulting foam on lower left leg."

"Not a bad emergency cast Watney. Looks tight. Can you feel your foot?" Dana asked.

"Hells yes, it feels like it might catch on fire" he snarled in reply.

"Okay, calm down, we're almost there and we will cut all that off and get you sedated. Won't feel a thing, I promise" Chris said.

"Thanks Chris. Thanks for coming back for me. Thanks for waiting for me. I'm sorry, it just hurts pretty bad, ya know?"

"Yeah I bet, you did a great job with improvising the cast."

"Yeah, that hurts too" Mark replied as he closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing to relax. He was safe now.

Once strapped in to the med bay exam table, Dana removed Mark's helmet while Mark just stared at her, and Chris went to work removing the cast Mark had rigged, gently cutting through it with a rotating saw not any different from a cast saw on earth, except this one had a stronger vacuum line to suck up all dust. When the cast had been split and opened some Mark sighed as the blood flowed unrestricted back into his ankle and foot, then yelped when a deep throbbing pain returned from the same region a moment later. Dana tried to place a respiratory mask over Mark's face, but he was startled, turned his head and looked at her with anger.

"Mark, Dana is going to give you some gas to relax and rest while we work. You won't feel a thing and we... I will wake you up as soon as we're done. You're going to feel better, I promise, trust me." Chris said.

Mark relented and Dana put the plastic breathing apparatus over his nose and mouth before turning on the anesthesia mixture and telling him to breath deep. Throughout all of this the last of Kay Kay's message was piped in by Beth, making the scene surreal to both the doctors and the patient. Occasionally he would reply back, forgetting that he was no longer mic'ed up until he finally went under and Dana both cut off the intercom and advised Beth to let Kay Kay know she could stop, with thanks from all.

Next Chris cut off the bottom of the EVA suit on the injured leg, did a gentle wipe down, then used an ultrasound to discover a green stick fracture to Mark's tibia, which didn't appear to be separated. It looked as though the door had slammed into it, shattered it with factures running lengthwise, but it didn't separate into multiple segments.

"Okay, we have significant bruising but the penornal and tibial arteries and veins look to be intact, so that's good. Looking at his foot, it appears the cast was causing some restriction, so the burning sensa... Are you alright Dana?"

"He... he seems angry at me Chris."

"Yeah, I picked up on that too. Worry about that later. I need to clean up and then you measure for a cast, you want to cut his EVA clear until then? They cost around 400k, so it will be the most money you've spent since you bought your house" Chris smiled, then keyed his microphone, "Commanders, we are going to need gravity in the med bay, can you start rotation?

"Starting now. What's his status Dr Beck?" he heard Mindy reply.

"Green stick fracture, sedated now, can't start med drip or cast prep without gravity. As ortho injuries go, we got lucky. No arterial damage shown but has significant bruising. It must have hurt like hell to get to the MAV, and the launch is the thing of nightmares. BP, respiration and heart rate all elevated but returning to normal. We will have full rundown once we get a cast on the leg and he is cleaned up. Dana will be working the cast, she has more ortho than I, and I will run a chem 7, calcium and pain drip. Right now, he's knocked out on general anesthesia.

"You've seen my house Chris. I didn't spend that much" Dana replied to his previous comment once Dr Beck finished briefing the XO. She had already began cutting the suit from Watney, starting with the chest so she could place the various monitoring patches that would give a better view of his status than the patches he wore under his EA did. Once done, they switched positions and Dana took over the work on his injury while Chris worked on everything else. In a matter of moments their jobs became easier as centrifugal gravity came into play from the ship spinning up.

About the time Dr Beck was removing the last of the EVA, the 3D medical printer was beginning to manufacture cast Dana had measured for, and within a half hour of his arrival, Mark was as patched up as the doctors could make him. Chris stayed with Mark while Dana went to the bridge to report his condition.

Her tears started before she got there.

"What's wrong?" Missy asked when she saw her physician friend's condition.

"He... he hates me. He hates us." Dana broke down.

"What? No, he doesn't, Mark" Rick started to say while Alex interrupted.

"Mark doesn't hate anyone."

"No, that's just not Mark" Beth added.

"I... think he thinks we left him on Mars. On purpose." Dana gasped. Although she no longer had romantic feelings for Mark, him thinking that of her was crushing to her soul. She considered Mark to be her best friend, even more than Chris.

"I'm sure he's just in pain" Mindy said trying to comfort Dana.

"I... I think Dr Abernathy is right" Beth said.

"Why would you think that?" Anna asked.

"In his first message from the MAV he said you fired up the mains, not that they fired up themselves. He thinks you left him on Mars. Because from his perspective, you left him on Mars."


	24. Chapter 24

**The Martians**

 **A word about some science stuff I've been meaning to post. The radioactive solar panels I described earlier are sort of real, but as far as I know don't work yet and can't really be tested without hauling them to space, so I just made the research further along than it currently is and made them wildly successful. The Orion III is based on a proposed ship for Mars transit that NASA played with, but as far as I know is now dead. There was a mockup of it at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville but as of a few months ago it wasn't there any longer. That said, when I last visited, they were rearranging things so it may be back. The botany hab I described is based upon an inflatable ISS component proposal that I just thought was kind of neat, and the "landing sleds" I totally made up as I couldn't see any other way to land either the rovers or hab materials without it. I try to base the fantasy science on something real, but its not what I do for a living so I'm probably wrong about most of it. Thanks for reading, comments are truly appreciated. I need the ego boost. Also, Elon Musk couldn't have rescued them faster. Just sayin'.**

 **Chapter 24**

"What? Why would you say... that's horrible, he knows we would never..." Mindy gasped.

"Look at it his way. He lights up the thermite and then is going to run to the ship, but immediately the engines fire up and take off without him." Beth replied.

"But... no, he knew about the tilt override protocol, he was there before the storm when I told Commander Lewis about it." Mindy said as her eyes began to tear up.

"Yeah, but did he see the ship tilt?" Alex asked.

"It's 13.5 degrees, like the MAV right?" Rick asked.

"Yes but"

"He would have seen a 13.5-degree tilt." Beth said. "Look, I'm not saying he's right, I've got the telemetry recordings right here, you guys did nothing wrong, nothing at all, but you have to see things from his point of view."

"And from his point of view, we left him on Mars." Lewis said, completing the syllogism. "I should go talk to him, when will he be awake?"

"In a few minutes, we will give time for his pain drip to kick in first, but that won't work. For all he knows you gave the order." Dana replied, now openly crying.

"I will." Mindy said.

"If Commander Lewis didn't give the order, then you did. I mean, in his mind. He's not going to listen to any of the Vic One crew. I mean, he will act like he is, and never mention it again, but we will all feel it. The damage won't go away. I will, I'll talk to him. Alex can you take the Sysop station for a few?" Beth asked.

"Sure" Alex replied.

"Why you?" Anna asked.

"Well, he already doesn't believe Chris, so he won't believe Rick or Alex either, and the Vic One crew is out, Commander Lewis included. I mean, like I said, he will pretend to agree, but we will all know he won't. In the back of his mind it will always be there and I... well"

"You're the only one that could profit from it being true." Mindy said.

"So, when I tell him it isn't, I have leverage no one else here does. I guess it is time everyone knew about the whole Mindy, Beth and Mark triangle." Beth said.

"We know" Alex grunted while Rick openly laughed.

"You do? How?" Mindy asked.

"It is a small ship, and someone was an angst driven lunatic for a couple of months." Rick grinned. "It's cool. We don't care, and we have never said anything about it to anyone, and never will."

"Giant space opera." Alex laughed.

"Giant sexy space opera" Rick added, with a glare of anger from Lewis.

"We're naturally curious if the 'Watney's Space Harem' movie is true but"

"Shut up Martinez, not a word. That's totally inappropriate" Lewis blushed and for a moment grinned, then forced herself serious again.

"I'll go and wait for him to wake up if you got it Alex."

"Sure thing, and uh, none of us should ever mention any of this right? I mean, I shouldn't log it?" Alex asked.

"No. Beth gets it cleared up and it never happened, agreed?" Lewis asked her crew.

All nodded or said yes. There was no reason for it to ever be an issue, if Mark understood. It would only create awkwardness on the trip, and everyone understood Mark's perspective and thus his anger and he knew that they knew of it. All hoped Beth could fix it.

"Beth" Mindy called out once Beth was in the center passageway nearing then shaft to the med bay.

"Yes?"

"Uh, I wanted to say thanks. You, and, uh, that, well it really is good to finally meet you." Mindy replied.

"Yeah, you too. I hope our plan works, I mean, the one we have, not me talking to Mark, I mean, I hope that works too... look, when I was down and falling apart over Mark you could have gone full XO on my ass and I would have spent two years in space thinking I had wasted my life. You were good to me and, well, I'm not going to fuck you over with Mark. Let's just get through this and start the work schedule, and uh, the off-work schedule, you wrote. I'm looking forward to it. I can see why Mark loves you so much."

"You too Beth. It's going to be a good trip home. Can't wait to start it!" Mindy smiled.

Beth slide down the connecting tube to the Med Bay, clutching the ladder rails as she went and her weight increased.

Back in Houston, Kay Kay, Henderson, Kapoor and Sanders were all on the verge of collapse from the emotional and stressful roller coaster they had been riding for the last few hours. The Watney's were numb with the same exhaustion. Neither the Flight Director, the Director of Mars Missions, or the Director of NASA had slept in the last day. If truth were to be known Mr. and Mrs. Watney had not either. Kay Kay was emotionally drained from trying her best to talk to Watney before and throughout the launch, and when Mitch finally told her she could stop, several minutes after the arrival the MAV by his clock, she fell forward in the seat being caught by her father and Dr Riley Coffman, the ground Flight Physician.

"Thank you, Miss Kay Kay, you helped save his life" Dr Coffman said as he helped her lean back against the chair back.

"Are you okay honey, need some air, or something to drink?" Her mother and father asked.

"I... yeah, maybe, I don't know, I just feel, uh, really weak. Drained. What do you mean? All I did was talk."

"All you did was give Dr Watney something to focus on to take his mind off the pain. If he had gone into shock, we might not have been able to bring him back. You did great. Thank you. I'll get you something to drink, we should have the med report in a few minutes and we will know for certain Mark is alright then" Coffman smiled as he turned and went to a docent to order him to the break room for a ginger ale.

Momma Watney, Mr. Watney, and Kay Kay stayed in Mission Control for the next hour listening to updates as they came in and would not leave until they heard Mark was absolutely going to be alright. When the initial report came in from Chris explaining the break and the limit of the harm, Dr Coffman explained how fortunate they were that Mark's injuries, although serious, no longer appeared to be life threatening. Then it was Kay Kay's turn to help catch Momma Watney as she nearly collapsed from relief when the doctor told them.

For some reason people on Earth would never know, the crew put off an overall update for several hours, but Annie was able to explain to the press that each was quite busy getting the ship ready to break orbit, stowing the voluminous samples and research that had returned with Victoria I, and the med staff was obviously putting Watney's health as first priority. It was known he was out of danger but treating a broken bone in space came with its own challenges, which were explained to the press by Dr Coffman as Dana and Chris seemed unavailable.

Mindy was returning to the command bridge when Lewis and Martinez left the green room and met her.

"A moment please Commander" Lewis said, and from the title use Mindy knew it was to be a serious conversation.

"Sure, Beth is talking to Mark now, so I guess we just wait."

"Yes, true, but I, I need to talk to you both for a minute away from the crew. Rick, as you know by NASA rules Mindy is now XO of the mission. I've been working with her for several months on personnel and research issues and crew scheduling and she's going to do a great job. Thing is, and Commander Park will be the first to tell you, she knows nothing about the Hermes relatively speaking, and I didn't have either the time or training equipment at KK to teach her."

"Mindy, as associate commander, Rick has filled the command billet of Hermes longer than anyone, including its commanders, past and present. So, I am doing a field promotion to full commander, and placing him in charge of flight operations. That is outside of NASA's orders, but as I told Anna earlier Rick, I'll make it stick. I wanted to tell you both so there wouldn't be any, well, no hard feelings or misunderstanding, you've both been very professional and..."

"Oh, thank god!" Mindy near shouted, "I don't know anything about this ship that they don't teach at the visitor center in Houston!"

"Well thanks Commander but that's really not necessary, I will follow your orders and rank has never been a big deal on this mission and..."

"Yes, you will. I remain in charge over the mission, but I want both of you helping me. I've learned today that I can be emotionally compromised, and both of you, all the crew, really stepped up. I fly with amazing people." Missy smiled. "Oh, and Rick, during down time, we are going to adopt a Vic I protocol. Just use first names. Okay?" Missy said as she pushed off to go back to the command center green room.

"So, Mindy, I think we rule with an iron fist and whip these bastards into shape, how do you feel?" Rick giggled.

"Yer damn skippy!" Mindy laughed.

"No... just... No!" Missy shouted behind her, glad that her two assistants could joke together, even sick jokes.

In less than a minute, the crew was waiting in the green room for Beth to report back, all except Chris who was in the corridor just outside the Med Bay.

"I just turned the gas mix to all air, but we need to leave the mask on for a few. What he exhales has to be precipitated so..."

"So the un-absorbed anesthesia doesn't leak out and make us all stoned."

"Well that and it is pretty volatile and might explode, and"

"And that would be bad" Beth said, finishing Chris's sentence for him. "When can I talk to him?"

"You can start trying now. Once he talks back it should be safe to take the mask off." Chris replied.

"Thanks, I only have a few minutes before we have to calculate and load the thrust vectors for breaking orbit. They should be coming in from Houston now" Beth said as she stepped through the portal to the med bay and saw her beloved Mark laying on the exam bed with several IV drips, naked except for his shorts and a blue net cast on his leg to above his knee, and a mask over his face.

"Hey Mark? Can you hear me?"

"Mrwargble" Mark said softly.

"Was that a word Mark? Can you hear me?" Beth sweetly asked.

"Beth..." Watney barely spoke.

To Beth, that was good enough and she lifted the respirator from his face.

"Hey! You're back!" Beth smiled as Mark's eyes focused on her and he grinned.

"Hey, not the reunion I planned but, uh, you're here. Thanks. Thanks for coming back for me." Mark slowly said, still whispering. His voice sounded raspy due to the air he had inhaled over the last hour being dry. His throat felt raw and he looked around the room as if seeking something.

"What do you need?"

"Water."

"Oh, Chris is right here he will know where" was all Beth got out before Chris walked in, took a squeeze bottle from a nearby tray and gave it to Beth to administer."

"Just sips at first, your body has to wake up before you can swallow a lot of fluids" Chris instructed as he walked back out.

Beth administered it as instructed and after a few small sips Mark felt the relief of his throat re-hydrating.

"Thanks" Mark said with a clearer, though still weak, voice.

"You're welcome. How do you feel?"

"Uh... bad. Like I drank champagne all night and now its 3 am and the alcohol is wearing off and the hangover is starting, and someone is frying ham and eggs and it's all making me nauseous... and my leg is, uh, it hurts."

"Chris tells me you got lucky with the leg injury. Green stick fracture and you are all fixed up and waiting to heal. You get extra calcium drips and we all get more gravity so you can get better. No one minds that. Well the Vic I crew probably does. They are used to living in 6/10's of a G."

"I... well, they left me on Mars Beth. They fucking left me on Mars, I thought... I thought they were my... they left me on Mars." Mark wept.

Beth crawled on to the bed beside Watney and lay her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his good arm, the one without IV lines, around her. She was so good to him despite his neglecting of her for so many months. Mark felt unworthy of her loyalty and affection but was glad she was there for him.

"So, if that's what you think, I get you all to myself now I guess" Beth grinned.

"Yeah I guess, I should have never"

"Except that is a lie, and I don't want to live a lie, and I don't want you to either" Beth interrupted.

"What? I saw it Beth, I saw them launch, they could have idled the starters for a couple minutes, that was more than enough time for me to get back. Instead, I had to dive into the door of the hab before the shock wave hit. Well, fall really. I was already in the doorway. That's what hit my leg and"

"Yes, I'm sure that is what you saw, all the telemetry says so. But you know about the tilt override protocol, don't you?"

"It didn't tilt, I would have seen it."

"No Mark, but it thought it did. Here, look" Beth said as she held her tablet in front of him. "This line is the readings for the lower level gyros. Apparently, the fuel, hydrogen and O2 from the previous launch attempt collected under the cowling and blew up when you lit up your sparkler. It's pretty cool that you got those to work by the way. Pyros all over earth are worshiping you like a god these days I imagine. Anyway, that blew up, you probably saw that, and all three lower gyros took a thump and went out of whack. Look, this one shows a 27-degree tilt, that one an 18, and the center one, it took the biggest thump, says 183 degrees, it literally signaled that the ship was upside down. So it launched and since those didn't agree, it switched main guidance to the digital ones inside the systems until they rebooted throughout the ship. The launch command was automatic and the only telemetry until Anna got it under control was 'up."

Mark stared at the data and knew Beth was right.

"As much as I would love to have you all to myself, I can't do that Mark. I hope that... uh, clears things up. Now, I must get back to the con and help get us on our way home. Are we all good?"

"I was an ass to Dana."

"Yeah, it upset her to see you in so much pain, but I don't think anyone else has seen this data Mark. It's our little secret, and I'm not logging it."

Beth wasn't lying, Dana did hate to see Mark in pain, no one else had actually seen the data, and it was to be a secret that went unlogged.

"You are going to hang out here for a while I guess, you want Chris to get you a line to Houston so you can let your folks know you are okay?"

"Yeah, and thanks Beth. You're... Mmmmmm" Mark replied as he hugged her as hard as he could with one arm while medicated.

"You might want to talk to your friend Kay Kay too. I think she is probably worried about you" Beth said as she kissed Mark for the first time since before training.

"She talks a lot, doesn't she?" Mark grinned.

"Yeah, they were worried you might go into shock and wanted to give you something to focus on. As I understand it your biometric read outs were most normal when she was talking so Houston just had her keep it up. Who knew a 15-year-old high school girl could talk on the phone so much?"

"Uh, every 15-year-old boy in the world?"

"Probably right" Beth smiled, "see ya in a few."


	25. Chapter 25

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 25**

"Mr. and Mrs. Watney? If you will come with me, we have a private video room so you can talk to your son" the docent smiled.

"Come with us Kay Kay, he will want to see you too" Mrs. Watney said to the near exhausted girl, "if your parents don't mind."

"Oh, no, of course but don't you want to...,"

"All Mark talks about is his crew and Kay Kay. He can talk to his crew anytime he wants now. Kay Kay is flying home in a few days. Come on Kay Kay, it's okay." Mrs. Watney smiled.

The Watneys were accustomed to sending video messages to Mark and knew the routine; film it from their end, send it, and once they saw Mark on their screen, he was listening to it. His response would arrive almost immediately, but there would be another long wait between messages, so it was best to say all they wanted the first time. The medical staff suggested they be brief as it was unknown how effected he was by the pain medication he had received.

Both parents talked of how happy and proud they were and asked him to thank every member of the crew for them. Kay Kay talked about how she hoped she wasn't too annoying earlier, but that she meant everything she said, and how lucky she felt to have been asked. She explained that NASA wanted her to talk so he would have something to focus on, but she ran out of things to say, but she really did want his help picking a college and the Cubs were having a lame spring. She also repeated that she was going to Orlando when they came back to Florida and hoped that Mark and his parents and the crew could visit it with her but understood if they couldn't.

While the Watney's were talking to the camera, Annie was wrapping up the press briefing and the interested part of the world, which was anyone with electronic media, breathed a sigh of relief. Teddy and Venkat were waiting for her backstage.

"Good briefing."

"It's what I do" Annie smiled.

"What is your impression of Watney now?" Teddy asked.

"Well I just heard what he said replying to Kay Kay and Hermes, but right now I want to stay away from using him. He is either hurting too bad or too doped up for press time."

"Bad optics?" Vincent asked.

"Very bad. He would get a lot of sympathy, sure, but people love him and would hate us for him being injured. Better to have the rest of the crew now and just say he's resting for the time being."

"I agree. Next question. Kay Kay, how much did you hear?" Teddy asked.

"Most of it, I was standing right beside her until I had the briefing."

"And?"

"Well you heard the doctor, she kept him calm."

"We owe her, and I think we can kill two birds with one stone. How are her ratings?" Teddy said.

"Better than the crews, except for Watney and Park. We scored a real hit there. Aside from payback, what's the other stone?" Annie asked.

"Getting Watney to stop calling himself the King of Mars. Everyone thinks it's funny now, but ESA, Russia, and CNSA are going to go apeshit eventually."

"I think he likes that joke too much. You have an idea we haven't tried already?" Annie replied.

"Yes. Bribery. Here's what I want to do..."

Teddy explained his idea to Montrose, who quickly agreed to script it. Mitch and Vincent had already approved, and Mitch was already making calls, which Teddy followed up on. Over the next few hours it was finalized, and the outline sent to Watney, who was asleep when it arrived on his private channel.

When he woke nine hours later, he replied his complete agreement. He was surprised that NASA, in spite of its beadlement status most days, had actually grown a heart.

The evening before though, a dreary eyed astronaut, in a morphine induced stupor, was replying to his parents and biggest fan, heaped adoration on all, and occasionally falling asleep. Chris woke him up enough to finish, then explained to all three that his medical condition was no longer threatening and what they were seeing was the aftermath of pain, stress and pain medication.

Just before Mark fell asleep again, he told Kay Kay "next time you are wondering what it feels like to be a hero, just look in the mirror and ask yourself."

The next day Mark was far more presentable. Chris and Dana had him up and moving around with crutches and a walking boot, but the new weight made him miserable. His first order of business was apologizing to Dana, but she assured him she had seen pain before and tried to make it clear she was writing off the episode to that. They knew each other too well and neither believed it, but neither would ever speak of it again. Mark was alive and after a late-night thruster burn (a ship can't break orbit on ion drive alone), on his way home. Once the trajectory was established the rest of the crew began rotating down time so they could recover from what was essentially a 36-hour work day.

First though, they had a film to make.

Kay Kay and her parents had spent the night in Houston and were not scheduled to leave for a couple more days. Annie arranged for a behind the scenes tour that went well beyond the public visitor center one to spend the day, but it wasn't very interesting to see the various work areas if you didn't know what was going on. Nothing was set up for tourists, although most of the staff recognized her and were happy to show her around. The sensitive areas of military research and integration were avoided due to her and her parents lacking anywhere near the security clearance to see it, but most of the facility they visited. Her father was particularly interested in the long-range space based telescopic research so they spent quite a bit of time there.

Around three the docent brought them back to the main conference center where a press briefing was scheduled, but when they arrived only a few of the reporter's seats had anyone in them, and of the three cameras two were on stage and were staffed by what were clearly NASA employees. The one in the press area was too, but that wasn't as obvious.

Before the trio could think much about it, Annie swooped in.

"Oh good, you're here! Kay Kay, why don't you sit here, Director Sanders will be in the center to your right, and your parents to your left. Come on, we must hurry before the press arrives" She smiled to the confused girl.

"Press conference? But... I don't know what to say" Kay Kay replied, clearly startled by this development.

"Oh, with Director Sanders and Director Kapoor here no one is likely to ask you anything. If they do, I can help you answer, but you'll be fine. Come on, have a seat."

Kay Kay shrugged and with her somewhat bewildered parents, sat in front of the large dark screen that dominated the stage. Looking around she saw that the people in the press gallery were all staring at their phones and seemed to have no interest in her.

"Oh good, you made it" Teddy Sanders said as he walked in from across the stage, with Mitch and Vincent on his heels. Technicians began clipping microphones to everyone, Kay Kay and her parents included. "Dr Akina, and Dr Akina, it is a pleasure to meet you both. I know we were standing five feet from each other last night, but let me introduce myself, Teddy Sanders, Director of NASA. Your daughter has been a big help to us, especially yesterday. Thank you, Kay Kay," he said as he shook both hands and the smiles of Kay Kay's parents.

"You must be proud" Vincent added.

"Oh, we are. When she showed us her project, well, we never thought it would take her this far. We just hope she stays focused and keeps her grades up. She has a bright future if she does" her mother replied, beaming at her embarrassed daughter.

"She's going to be fine. I wish my grandkids had her school and work ethic, I'm proud of them though, don't get me wrong" Mitch added.

Mitch saying "wrong" was the cue to the technician to start the film. As Teddy sat down, Kay Kay heard a voice behind her.

"Psst! Kay Kay, over here"

It was so quiet at first Kay Kay thought she must have imagined it as she looked around and saw no one, then it came louder.

"I'm right behind you!"

Mark's face filled the screen and the camera zoomed back to show the crew as well, with Rick and Beth at their workstations and the rest seated around Mark in the green room behind the com. Mark's leg was elevated onto a pillow atop the break table, it had been a challenge just to get him up to the room from the med bay, but once his need for IV's was over the gravity was again cut, just for this occasion. The film had been attempted in the med bay, but there was not enough room for all there.

"Hi Kay Kay, we're on the Hermes now, and we owe you big. Thanks for talking Mark through it" Mindy smiled.

"And thanks for keeping the faith" Missy added.

"So, here's the thing Kay Kay, NASA is wanting me to stop calling myself the King of Mars. It's silly, I know, I mean, I colonized it and I was the last human there so... well apparently, they think even the Canadian Space Agency will get mad about it... and they don't get mad about anything. So, I've agreed to tone it down, but first, we have to get some things straight." Mark grinned.

"Watney, we've been over this" Teddy said on cue.

"Yes" Mark replied after an awkward pause, "and it is good that you have agreed to my more than reasonable demands"

"Not demands Mark" Chris said.

"My more than reasonable suggestions" Mark smiled.

"First, in keeping with my duties as King of Mars and Protector of all that is Martian, with the advice and consent of the Royal Parliament... I said with the advice and consent of the Royal Parliament,"

"Here Here!" the crew all said in reply.

"I do hereby name you 'Princess Kalani Kay Kay Akina, Princess of Mars, Duchess of Schiaparelli, Defender of the Faith, and Martian Ambassador to Earth' and with it all the rights, powers and privileges thereof. Which honestly, aren't a lot, but we're going to get the media department to print you up a nice certificate suitable for framing. Also, this date on the Martian calendar will forever be 'Princess Kay Kay Day."

"Awww thanks Mark" Kay Kay replied, then felt silly as he was quite a few minutes away. The crew had expected some reaction and waited a few moments before the film began again.

"What say yea all Royal Parliament?"

"Here here!" the crew agreed laughing.

The seriousness of the film, and there never was much, decayed rapidly after that. Teddy had gone all out to create a package even Watney would be impressed with. Following her being named a princess, one of the Disney princesses, Belle as the crew considered her to be the most academic minded, and one of the actors who play Rey at the Star Wars section of the park, came on the screen from Orlando to invite Kay Kay and the crew to Orlando when the Hermes returned. Mark demanded that as ambassador of the Martian people Kay Kay be allowed to establish a Martian Embassy at whatever University she decided to attend, and Teddy announced that the "reporters" in the audience were actually reps of the crew's alma maters who were anxious to meet Kay Kay and her parents, invite her to apply and set up campus visits for that summer.

Mark said he would make sure Kay Kay and her family could attend, but the CEO of Space X, which operated Discovery Station, stood and offered a corporate jet and to cover the costs of travel. He also mentioned that he could have rescued Mark faster, but no one really believed him given that his heavy launch vehicles were all used for the Hermes restock and upgrades.

The screen cut in half with a star pitcher from the Cubs inviting Kay Kay up to Chicago that weekend to throw out the first pitch so that some of the amazing luck that Ares III and Victoria I had gotten from her might rub off on the team. Truthfully, they weren't doing all that bad and the season was still young, but the owners of the Cubs knew good PR when they saw it and were quick to respond affirmatively to a request from Mitch.

Mark concluded the phony press conference on film by stating that he would allow further visits from "Earthicans" to Mars, provided they supported the rights of the indigenous Martian people, and made proper application for visas via the Martian people's representative, Kay Kay. Finally, he said that in honor of this occasion and Kay Kay's becoming a princess, that a coronation ball be held upon the crew's return and was to be at least partially catered by Giordano's or Uno's of Chicago, or preferably both.

Teddy agreed that this could be arranged.

This has been scripted and true to his word Watney never called himself the "King of Mars" again publicly. To him, the joke had worn old anyway, but it was nice to use it one last time to thank the crew's biggest fan.

Mark just had to leave the script though and added a final demand that field promotions of Martian Lord Rick Martinez and Lady Anna Washburn, as elevated by Lady Lewis of the Royal Court of Mars, to the ranks of Commander be ratified by NASA. Teddy knew nothing about this as Lewis had yet to give her full report of the last two days, so Missy quickly explained the situations and asked that the promotions be adopted. She was a bit irate at Mark for bringing it up and hoped all that would be edited out.

Teddy was irate as well as it wasn't part of the script, but he was fast on his feet.

"Well Mark, both Lt Colonel Martinez and Major Washburn are Air Force on loan to NASA, but as far as NASA goes, we concur. Both are worthy and have earned it. The titles we can give, the rest is up to their employer, but I'll push for it."

Missy stayed pissed until the reply came, but finally found the humor in it all and realized Mark had done her job for her, probably because he was lightheaded from pain medication and euphoric on being alive. She couldn't stay mad at Mark, even if he did seem to go out of his way to avoid proper channels and protocols at times.

Following the fake press conference, a real one was held. Annie had sent questions in advance during the night which the crew took turns reading, and the reporters present were also able to ask the NASA team on stage questions directly. Kay Kay and her parents met with the school reps to schedule visits all summer and every school was interested in helping her get in. All thought she had the academic ability to succeed, and privately thought it would be a PR boon to them as well. Teddy left the conference just long enough to give Kay Kay and her parents a contract to look over that extended her broadcast appearances for the next 18 months, and advised they have their family attorney look it over. Kay Kay had been appearing on an ad hoc basis that paid more than any other after school job, but this paid quite well and would go far to covering her school expenses that scholarships would not.

With that, Teddy returned to the conference and had not missed much as the crew were still on video answering the questions that had been sent up earlier. These were the same sterile "All American" questions usually asked, with the same by gosh awesome canned answers given. All had a chance to thank everyone at home as usual, and it would have been a complete snooze fest except for one of the last ones asked to Mark.

Annie had included it to relieve the intellectual curiosity of Satcom and the media that had covered the Morse code messages. then later wished she had not.

"So, Mark" Anna asked, reading from a card "Reuters wants to know, they have figured out all your rock pile messages except the one you left on the third day of your overland trip. It is just the letters 'KT', care to fill us in what that means?"

"Uh" Mark grunted, clearly stunned and not expecting the question, "Uh, no. That one is personal. Sorry. That one I'm keeping. The people that need to know already do."

"Sorry Mark, but you gotta answer, that's the rules!" Mindy joked, then realized Mark's eyes were tearing up.

"Uh... my leg is really hurting; I should wrap it up. Thanks everyone" Mark said as he slowly stood to leave, gingerly lifting the cast from the table. Dana and Chris came to assist their friend and it was all broadcast back home until Beth aimed the camera at Missy and rolled her fingers to tell her to keep talking.

"Sorry folks, Mark is fine but still in quite a bit of pain from his leg injury so we're going to let him rest now. Who has the next question?"

Rick read off something simple and they all took turns answering it until Mark had cleared the room, then they ran through a few more until the doctors returned, each shrugging so the crew would know they were just as in the dark as they were as to the cause of Mark's distress.

The crew squeezed in together for a smiling group shot, then the conference from space was over.

Mrs. Watney was immediately asked by the first reporter to stand if she knew what 'KT' meant.

"Yes."

"Could you explain it for our viewers?"

"Yes, but Mark said it was personal, so I won't. Please don't ask again."

"Uh but..."

"NASA takes the privacy of its crews and their families very seriously and we won't be taking any more questions on that subject. Mark will explain it when he is ready to and not before. Mr. and Mrs. Watney are here at our invitation, but owe the media, or NASA, nothing. So please, let's move on" Annie commanded.

Annie thought that was just about the worst possible way to address the question, but she had nothing better. She too was surprised by Mark's reaction and would contact Lewis and Watney as soon as the conference was over so she could handle it more appropriately.

What followed was a half hour of boring questions regarding the ship's status, expected ETA to Earth and how the medical and psychological staff accessed the crew's current fitness.

"Overall very good all things considered, and the crew is certainly able to complete their mission. You must remember that all have been in space a long time but with the added personnel, work shifts will be shorter and down time for rest longer. Obviously, Dr Watney's injury is a concern but he could not be in the care of two more skilled physicians." Kapoor answered.

"What about his mental health? He seemed distressed."

"Well I wouldn't read too much into that. He said his leg was hurting and I imagine it is. Weightlessness allows things to wander around, including the parts of his leg that were injured" the ground physician said.

With that the conference ended with a whimper instead of a bang, but everyone in the room was wondering "What the hell is a KT?"


	26. Chapter 26

**The Martians**

 **Tonight, we wrap up a loose end that absolutely no one has asked about either in comment or email. I'm kinda disappointed at that…**

 **Chapter 26**

"Mrs. Watney" Annie said as Mark's parents were walking down the corridor to return to their rental and back to the hotel.

"Yes Annie, how can I help you?" Mark's mother asked sweetly. She and her husband had been on a first name basis with Montrose for some time.

"Uh, this 'KT" thing isn't going to go away now, can you tell me anything? I think we just opened it up to every conspiracy theorist on the Internet and this sort of thing could go viral fast."

"No" she replied, "Mark said it was personal, and, it is, but if you can get me one more private conference to Mark and add someone to it, they may be able to tell you. I'm sorry but it isn't my story, and I know it touches a nerve with Mark. An old memory."

"We can do that; do you want to try now?"

"We can, but I need to make a call first. What do you need to add someone to the video conference?"

"No idea, but the tech at the comm center will know. Thanks." Annie replied.

Back on Hermes, once the camera was off, it was decided that the two crew that were perceived to be the closest to Mark should check on him. No one thought his abrupt departure from the conference had to do with his leg hurting. It was, based on his emotional response, something deeper than simple pain. Beth and Mindy would be able to call in Dana or Chris for medical or psych support, or anyone else they chose if need be, but it was assumed that whatever had torn Mark apart in the conference was best handled by those closest to him. He wasn't likely to open up to anyone else.

An hour later when they had not returned, Missy took it upon herself to check up and found them all in tears.

Beth and Mindy had arrived a few minutes before a private video from Mark's mother but had learned nothing about the meaning of "KT" initially.

"Hey Mark, we wanted to check on you, can we come in?"

"Sure, I was going to read or something, you're always welcome, you both know that" Mark replied, his eyes still glistening.

They sat on either side of his bed. As he roomed by himself at his end of the pod, both bunks had been pushed together so his injured leg would have room. His normal roommate, Chris, was planning to stay in the med bay with Dana, just in case they were needed. No one believed that excuse or cared. Missy and Mindy's bunks were at the other end of the pod and the three shared a restroom and shower, although they had all done so on Orion for most of the last year and no one thought anything about it.

After a pregnant silence Mindy asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. I... yes I do, but it's... it's not... no, I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay" Beth replied. "Mark, whatever it is, you know the media and the nutjobs aren't going to let it be, but if you don't want to talk about it, fuck them. We all have your back. Honestly, they are too much up in our business already. I think I can speak for everyone on that. You want to keep it private, you keep it private. Your call. We support it, we don't need to know, understand?"

"Uh thanks. It's not anything bad, I just... it's really personal, and the other person, well, they can't speak for themselves. I just want to leave it alone and see if people stop caring."

"If that's what you want to do, we support you. Every one of us. If its too much weight, we'll help you carry it, we don't have to know what it is. Everyone here loves each other Mark. Everyone. If NASA knew they wouldn't want us to work together, but, well, maybe they should. We just want you to be happy. We all just want to get home and back to the real world where nobody cares about astronauts. Where we aren't the story on every slow news day." Mindy said.

The trio talked about a number of things, none important. Mindy told Beth stories about Mark on Mars, Beth told stories about Mark on Hermes and in training, and Mark told stories about both. They talked a long time and Mark seemed to be coming out of his funk a bit. Mindy was about to tell him about the plan she had developed to handle the romantic interests, the time seemed right, but then his comm link beeped with a private line message with the title saying it was from "Steven", indicating it was his private and secured line, with a header indicating it was from his mother and "Doris."

"Hang on" Mark asked his crew mates.

The screen was split in two with, the now familiar to Beth and Mindy, Mrs. Watney on one side, and a woman approximately the same age on the other. This one appeared to be coming from a private home, or perhaps a doll store. There were dolls everywhere.

"Hey Mark, it's me again!" his mother grinned, "and look who I have with me! Mrs. McCallister! After she saw the press conference, well, she wanted to talk to you and Ms. Montrose said that would be okay. Doris is home but they sent her a, is it called a secured link? Anyway, she's talking to you through her computer. Are you in a place you can talk?"

"Hi Mark" the other woman began. "Your mother said not to talk about the press conference until you said it was alright, but I need to tell you three things. First, we are all so very proud of you. I know I've sent that in emails but it's true, the whole neighborhood, heck, the whole city... country is following you. Second, uh, you looked like you were hurting on that press thing, you shouldn't. She wouldn't want that, she is so very proud of you, I just know, well, we will talk about that more in a minute. Third thing, I found it! A 2000 Goddess of Love edition! Mint condition, even the package is perfect, and it has the tags and paperwork! That's the last one! Its complete now so we're going to have to find a new hobby!" Mrs. McCallister said as she held up a pristine looking doll dressed in a white toga in a box that clearly said "Barbie" on it.

"You collect Barbies Mark?" Mindy asked.

Mark rolled his head towards her, stared a moment as if thinking how to address the question, then looked back towards the screen.

"Hey mom, hey Doris, yeah, I'm here with Beth, our sysop, and Mindy, our XO. They, well, they are two of the most special people I have ever known, we can talk in front of them if you like. That's up to you Doris. So is KT. Yeah, that question kinda kicked me in the gut. I wasn't in on selecting the questions this time or I would have thrown that one out. I was still in the med bay I guess. The crew did the best they could. No, I've never told anyone about it, and I wasn't about to. That's not my question to answer Doris. It's yours. You decide. I... I can't talk about KT without having a break down anyway. You want to talk to the press or just write a note, you do it, tell whatever you want. If you don't want to, well don't worry about the press pestering the folks. Dad's not a good enough duck hunter to own that many shotguns anyway."

"While we're talking though, well, I would like to tell the crew. I haven't, like I said, I think it's your story, not mine. And I love the Goddess of Love! I knew we would find one eventually. So, new hobby? How about all the ones up until last year when I wrote KT on Mars? One of the things is..." Mark continued until he choked up, then caught his breath and continued, "See, the Morse code symbols for KT is 'dash, dot, dash' for 'K', then just a 'dash' for 'T.' I put her there, under the dot. I was going to put 'KT' back at Ares III, but, well, I wanted her to have her own spot. Its, well it's not nice there, but it was on a wide open place on the Acidalia Planitia, you could see for miles and no big rocks, so, well it stood out. I wanted to always be able to look and find it. Under the dot, that's where she is, I put Millicent in a sample tube, and wrapped a note to KT around it made of radiation proof metal from the MDV housing. I etched it with a rotary tool at Ares III, then put it all in a sample bag, and built the dot around it. I couldn't do much to protect it from the cold, but it's safe from radiation. She will be there long after humanity is gone. Forever, or as close to forever as she can get. There are probably photos everywhere now of KT while the reporters and crackpots try to figure it out, but I wanted you to know. I promised I would take her to the moon someday, but I'm never going there. I hope Mars is alright, I think it is. It's the best I can do anyway. I'm never going back to space." Mark said, now weeping openly.

There was a long signal turn around, but when the women came spoke again, it was Doris that began.

"Mars is better than the moon Mark, she would... she is so proud of you, I know she is. You've kept your promise. I'll take care of the media, but I don't want to tell them about Millicent. You keep that. That is your story. I... think other kids would benefit from knowing about Catherine though. Like when you did that picture for St Judes. I know Catherine would have loved the man you have become. Your mom and I, we will take care of it. You don't worry. Be safe. You are loved."

The screen went blank, Mark's eyes were glistening with tears, and feeling his pain too Beth and Mindy lay beside him, his arms around them, and they wept with him, not fully understanding why. Only that he hurt, and they hurt with him.

"I was about six when Catherine and her family moved in next door. She was about four months older than me and never let me forget it. Her mom collected dolls and began a collection for her, she was going to sell them to help pay for college someday. Not the regular ones you can get at any department store, the collectable ones they put out a half dozen times a year. Anyway, we were little and didn't know any better, so she got one out of the package and played with it. Her mom got upset and made us both promise we wouldn't touch any of the others. Well, I didn't care about dolls but didn't see what the big deal was, I mean, aren't you supposed to play with them? Catherine and I sort of grew up together. We played, did homework together, our parents grilled out and such. We did everything together. Really close neighbors you know? She was my best friend. She wanted to be ballerina, that's the sort of thing little kids want, I had no idea what I wanted to be, but I told her someday I wanted to go to the moon. She laughed. I think that inspired me to work harder in school just to show her up."

"Anyway, you're wondering if she was my girlfriend. No, she was my best friend, I never thought of her that way, or her like that of me, I think. Catherine, that... but she called herself Katie. When I was little, and we first met, I thought she was just saying the letters, K and T. KT. I... well she never corrected me. She just started calling me 'MK' for Mark, but I didn't know it, she just said "Mmmmmkay" when I said something. It wasn't until years later I knew.

"She... she was 14 when she was at dance class, I think she was kind of over the whole ballerina thing by then but... well, she kept falling off balance. Everyone thought it was an inner ear thing. After a week or so she fell, and her nose started bleeding. It wouldn't stop and when they took her to the doctor, well, they found the tumor. Couldn't operate, chemo and radiation were both tried, and both failed, and a few months later she was gone."

"The last weeks were the worst. She didn't know who I... well or who anyone was. She was way too young for that. The last lucid thing she did when I was there was to give me the doll we had played with, the one her mom got upset about, and had me promise to take it to the moon. Then she asked me to kiss her as neither of us had ever kissed anyone and... she said she loved me and wanted me to remember her. I told her I loved her too, and I did, but not, you know, romantically, it was more than that. That's when she gave me the doll. I... I never made it to the moon, but, you know, Mars is pretty good I think. Her mom gave me the whole collection she had for KT, told me when I was ready to go to college to sell them and use the money but..."

"But you didn't." Beth whispered.

"No, I... I started filling in the gaps in her collections. I would do odd jobs, mow lawns and such, and then get them on online collectable auctions. Her mom found out and started helping me, it became our goal to get all the ones released while KT was alive, but really it became a way to remember KT. I... I've never forgotten."

"And that's how you know about Skipper and Midge." Mindy said almost under her breath.

"And that's how I know about Skipper and Midge. We used to watch all the cartoons and stuff, KT was really into it for a while I think because she couldn't play with any of the others, forbidden fruit and all that."

"So KT is a shrine to your friend, and the doll, you two named it Millicent."

"Yeah, well no, Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts, but that's what we called her. KT thought it was a good name. and now, in a way, she's immortal. Millicent is too. She will always be there, long after humanity has killed itself off, KT and Millicent will be there. God I still miss her." Mark finally broke down and wept, with Mindy and Beth joining him.

That is how Lewis found them when she came to check. Seeing their condition, she asked to speak with Mindy alone.

"You can tell her Mindy, please, I don't think I can go through all that again right now" Mark said.

"Okay, I will, you two get some rest. Beth, you're back at sysop in 8. Mark you're on med leave until the doctors say otherwise."

Mindy left to go to the quarters she shared with Commander Lewis just next door.

"So, we have a situation" Missy began.


	27. Chapter 27

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 27**

 **Sorry for the delay, life is kind of obnoxious right now. Let me know if you have any ideas on how the love story should be wrapped up. In case you haven't noticed I tend to work suggestions and comments in. Thanks for continuing to read!**

"Situation? I think Mark will be fine, KT was a childhood friend and"

"I heard all that, I was going to come in but I heard Mark talking. Quite a story, I did not expect that. I figured Mr. Pyro left a shrine to kilotons. I guess that explains why he did the St Judes thing is such a big way. No, the situation we have is me." Lewis said.

"I'm not following" Mindy replied.

"An emotionally compromised leader isn't a leader. I... okay remember when Beth saw the only man she loved get killed with an antenna array, then found out he wasn't dead and decided to live her best life with him no matter what?"

"Yes, but we have that worked out, at least for the journey home and"

"Mindy. The same thing happened to me. Yesterday. I've emailed my lawyer and told him to restart the divorce. I saw Mark die. I can't... I won't live with Bob knowing inside how I feel about Mark and so... I'm emotionally compromised. I may need you to take over the mission."

The pair stared at each other considering Lewis's words until Mindy spoke.

"If you are, then I am too. I think maybe in a way everyone on the ship is. You're right to dump Bob, Mark hit it on the head when he said you deserved better, you do. As to Mark, well, Beth and I came to an arrangement, I'm sure Beth, you and I can work that out. What we did was decide to not get in each other's way and let Mark pick. Neither of us would ever willingly split with him again, and it sounds like you won't either. So, let's do that."

"I can't be involved with a crewman and"

"Neither can I. Neither can Beth, neither can Mark. This wasn't supposed to happen, but it has, and we are just going to have to deal with it. We're all hurting, we're all lonely and we're all at the breaking point. We have four to months to get through, and with all we've been through so far, especially you and Mark, we can make it. I know you can compartmentalize; I've seen you do it. I saw you put aside your feelings for Mark the entire time we were on Mars. I saw you lead us here when all we really wanted to do was break down from Mark dying. I didn't do anything; you did all that. So, it will work. We must get through the next four months the same way you did sixteen on Mars. It will work. It must. If not, then Rick will have to take over. I'm no more fit than you are, obviously. I saw Mark die too. I was there. But..."

"But?"

"But damn Mark is going to be worn out." Mindy grinned.

Lewis stared for a second at Mindy before grinning. "Yes, I think he is. The poor boy."

"We should ask Beth to join us for a minute."

"Yes, I guess she needs to know about Mark and I."

"Well, I hadn't thought of that actually. I just haven't had a chance to tell her the no fraternization rule is relaxed."

"Yeah, we better get her. Her and Mark are both off tonight. We're such nice leaders. Always putting the needs of the crew first." Missy laughed.

"Think we can get Dana and Chris to boost his B and E vitamin intake?" Mindy said as she rose to retrieve Beth.

"We will make sure he has the finest medical attention within a couple million miles."

Mindy slide the door to Mark's quarters open an inch, and asked Beth to join her and Lewis, which Beth reluctantly did. Mark and Beth were just beginning what Beth just knew was going to be an epic make out session that would leave her both giddy and frustrated, and she didn't want it to end.

"First, this is an off-duty conversation. Not logged, not recorded. I'm Missy. This is Mindy, you are Beth. We aren't officers on a NASA craft, you aren't here as Sysop. Understand?"

"Uh, sure" Beth answered, sounding worried as she assumed she was about to get reprimanded for making out with Watney.

"Good, so the thing is, uh, let's sit down. The thing is Beth, you need to know, well, when Mark and I were stranded we both thought we would die on Mars. We kept working and put on a brave face for the world and Hermes, but both of us knew the odds. Our crew has always been close, but, well we kept it professional. Then my jerk at home demanded a divorce and I broke down. Like every other woman, I think Mark is just great, I've always been attracted, just like you and Mindy have. Like I said, we thought we were going to die, and Bob kicked in the face publicly and..."

"You really should dump him; you deserve so much more Commander" Beth said.

"No, I mean, yes, I do, but I'm not 'Commander', this isn't a 'Commander' speech. The thing is, well, I was there, Mark was there, we were all alone and knew we would die and, well, I gave in to my temptations and urges and desires and..."

"Oh my god! You and Watney?"

Missy could only stare through glistening eyes and nod.

After a long silence Beth finally said "well, given the circumstances you"

"It's not something I'm proud of, but I'm human."

"It's okay, it's been a difficult time. I understand." Beth said, seemingly disappointed at Missy's lapse in judgment.

"No, I'm not ashamed either. Look, a year and half ago you saw the only guy you loved, really loved, die, and when you found he wasn't dead, you decided no matter what, you were going to be together. You went back to Mars for that reason and"

"Well we wanted to get you too! Geez, you're"

"Well, yes, but you, you had the added incentive. I get that. The thing is, yesterday I saw the only man I love die too, and I've come to the same decision."

"Oh. Well that changes everything" Beth said to Mindy.

"No. No it doesn't. It doesn't change anything. Our plan stays in place, it doesn't change, we stay out of each other's way, we don't try to sabotage each other, we spend as much time with Mark as he wants, and in the end he decides. Before he could have decided you, or he could have picked me, or he could have rejected us both and picked someone else. He still can, and we still do, we're all grown ass women here. Nothing, absolutely nothing has changed. Can we all agree with that assessment?" Mindy asked. "None of us asked for or like this situation, but we are in it."

"That. That sums it up I guess" Missy replied.

"Yeah, I suppose. This is quite a revelation, it's going to take me some time to process, but yeah, I guess that's about it" Beth finally said.

"Okay, so can we all agree to not put each other down, try to interfere, and just let Mark make up his own mind, and act like real grownups with our big girl pants on when he does?"

"If" Beth said quietly.

"What?" Missy asked, not sure she had heard correctly.

"If. If he makes up his mind. What if he doesn't?" Beth smiled.

"Well, then we move on home and figure it out there. The important thing is that we aren't enemies, or opponents, or adversaries. We aren't little girls fighting over a crush. Mark has free will in this, and we're just going to have to accept it, even if he gets it wrong and picks one of you. We are in space and must work together harmoniously to get back home. One mistake by any of us could kill us all and we don't need to be distracted by petty romance games like we are in the 7th grade."

"Ohhh, that seemed a bit catty!" Missy laughed.

"I thought you were calling me in to chew me out for kissing Mark just now, but I, well, after all this time and we were finally alone for a minute and..." Beth said, "Improper fraternization and all that."

"Oh I forgot to tell you that, She still doesn't know does she?" Missy asked.

"Know what?"

"Well, I promised you nothing would go on while we on Mars, and it didn't. Comman... Missy here has decided given the length of our trip and our time in space to relax that rule, so long as it doesn't become problematic. And it's not going to become problematic, is it? That will never be logged or transmitted of course, and no one outside this room needs to discuss it, although all of Vic I knows, including Mark. We're just keeping it on the low down. Well, I guess Chris knows too by now" Mindy giggled.

"You mean... what do you mean?" Beth asked.

"I'm totally fucking Mark Watney now. I promised nothing would happen on Vic I, and it didn't. I didn't promise anything about Hermes, and I'm totally fucking Mark Watney." Mindy stated plainly.

"And I'm fucking Mark Watney too" Missy added.

"Oh. Well, I... Okay, I'm fucking Mark Watney too" Beth nearly laughed. "So how is this going to work?"

"Same as before, only with more... you know" Mindy smiled.

"Fucking?"

"Yes. Except of course with me it will be sweet, passionate love" Missy replied.

"Well, with me, and Mark, it will be a joyous union of our souls" Beth grinned.

"I'm going to start with just fucking Mark Watney and see how it goes" Mindy laughed. "The best news, for you anyway Beth, is Missy and I are both on the work schedule for the next four hours, me for the next eight. I really hope Rick knows how to run this ship because I don't. See you two in the morning?" Mindy asked as she turned to go to the comm center.

"Sleep well Beth, I want you rested and ready for blue shift in the morning. Now if you will excuse me, I think I'll get to work." Lewis said with a smile. She was happy they were of one accord on what was a difficult and unplanned issue. It wasn't what she hoped for, or expected, but it was the only workable solution they had for the time being. It was going to be an interesting trip home.

The next day, after three shifts on board, Mark was exhausted but resting quite well. It was then that Missy, Mindy and Beth explained their plan to him, just as Beth was about to begin her second round of down time.

"So, you're all going to, uh, for lack of a better word, date me and leave it up to me to decide who I'm with?"

"Yes. We're all grown up and in a very awkward situation Mark, we have to work together, and this is no one's fault" Missy replied.

"It's kind of Mark's fault" Mindy giggled.

"True, but here we are" Beth smiled.

"Hmmm, and if I don't decide?" Mark asked after a long pause.

"Well, we finish the mission and you decide when we get home. Or we all can bail on you if we want. Right now, none of us want to, and, well, you seem happy" Mindy smiled.

"Okay, I've decided" Mark said.

All looked nervously side to side at one another until Missy asked.

"Who did you choose, we're all okay with whatever you wa..."

"All of you. I've never broken up with anyone. You've all dumped me before, so you figure it out" he grinned.

"So, you're going to wait until we are back on Earth and then"

"No, I'm not deciding then either. I care for all of you, all of us. If you can live with it, so can I. If you can't, I can find a way to get through that too. You're asking me to reject two of you. I'm not... I'm never going to do that. You all, each of you saved my life, I'm not going to repay you that way, and even if you had not, I adore each of you in your own way. You are amazing and wonderful people. You have figured out that you can coexist with me, well, I figure I can too, so I'm not picking. I think we just let it ride and play out however it does.


	28. Chapter 28

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 28**

After several days the crew had rested enough from the shorter shifts, and Mark had healed enough to move about with less pain than absolute agony, so the "Welcome Back to Hermes Party" was held. It had been planned for immediately after Victoria I's arrival, but due to Mark's absence, injury and recovery it had been delayed. This time the meal was smoked brisket from Lewis's favorite place in Houston, along with sealed in plastic drink bags red wine from California and beer from St Louis. Mark took this opportunity to return the property of Ares III that he had rescued and carried from the hab, as well as the stones he had collected for them and their loved ones at KK. Lewis had polished these and made it clear that they were not logged as specimens and that the crew was to keep them. Beth knew her hoodie was coming but wept with happiness at the thoughtfulness anyway, and Rick was overjoyed at the return of his crucifix and water bottle, as was Alex at his children's photos. Alex had already replaced them on another laptop but appreciated the thought and claimed many could never have been replaced. Chris put his watch on his wrist with a simple thank you and a misty-eyed look at Dana, who simply smiled.

Mark suggested with a grin that Rick use the water bottle for his beer, and Rick looked to be considering it until Lewis practically shouted "No!" and explained that when Mark was injured, he needed a relief bottle and nothing else was handy and...

"You peed in it? You bastard!" Rick shouted with a grin.

"Wait it wasn't his fault! I didn't have anything else to use, and, well, I washed it out. Several times. Myself." Missy laughed.

"Well so ya know, I was never going to use it to drink anyway. See, ever since I was a kid when I camped, I always brought back a little dirt in a jar, and whenever I've traveled, I've done the same. I must have a hundred jars of dirt so"

"So, you thought you would sneak back a little Mars soil as a personal souvenir against all NASA regulations?" Mindy asked with a smirk, as she held up the beautiful opal and olivine samples Mark had given her.

"Well I'm shocked. I would never allow that. Commander Parks, please take that bottle from Commander Martinez. That reminds me Dr. Watney, you remember on, I think it was day 19, you had that sample container rupture? If it hasn't all leaked out from the vibrations of the ride to KK, that water bottle would just about hold it perfectly, don't you think?" She grinned.

"Sample container rupture, what... Oh...Ya know, I think it would just fit. But, uh"

"I know, you think it would be a violation of NASA rules to seize an astronaut's property. So once you have the sample in it, give it back to Rick. It's a good thing we replaced that sample. Or lost it. I'm not really sure what happened to it, long trip, very fatiguing, are you sure what happened to it?" She smiled.

"No mam. No earthly idea. That is probably where all that Mars dust came from in the back of my ride" Watney replied. There was no lost sample of course and everyone knew it, but Rick had sacrificed greatly to relieve them. Missy and Mark were not going to let him go home without the best dirt in his collection.

NASA and the various other space agencies in the world, especially the Japanese and Russian ones, had done numerous studies on the effects of long term restrictions in both personal space and stimuli, as well as the duration of mission. Houston had continuously monitored the mental health of both crews as a result of these and a slew of their own studies, looking for both the effects caused by the claustrophobic conditions of Orion III as well as Hermes, and the routine of seeing the same black space every day and same people.

Originally the Ares III crew was put together with the guidance of Irene Shields and her team to ensure long term compatibility between the crew under the conditions they would face, and some thought, rushed as it was, went into the make-up of Vic I. What NASA didn't have time for was what might happen when the crews came together, plus the X factor of Lewis and Watney's long term isolation both at the Ares III hab and worse, on what was now being called the "Odyssey Path," they had taken cooped up in the rover, now called "Odyssey I," on the way to Ares IV, which had of course been renamed "KK." The crew still called the rover "Watney's Ride." No one would go along with calling it his "Pimp Wagon."

Irene tried to monitor the situation as well as she could, but her study subjects were not cooperative. None wanted to talk about what they were feeling beyond the very basics, "anxious to get home, I miss my family and friends, want a cheeseburger, and my leg hurts." From what she could glean from other methods, the crew was basically in good shape mentally, but there were concerns. Alex, perhaps the most isolated in many ways, had thrown himself into his work of the chemical analysis of the soil and air samples. Dana and Chris assisted the other scientists as well as Irene, and had Watney for their own project of "how well can we regrow broken bones in space while it sucks the calcium from their subject and themselves." As near as she could tell, Beth, Mindy, Mark had likewise thrown themselves into work, and she believed without proof that Mark and Beth had made themselves busy throwing themselves into each other. On Earth, Beth had promised nothing would happen between them on the mission, but Irene felt it was unrealistic that the conversation they were to have when they returned had really waited. Both seemed quite happy and other than Mark's injury were the most content of the crew, along with Missy and Mindy for some reason. That left the two pilots, Rick and Anna, who were the least cooperative with Irene's inquiries, which led Irene to have Dana and Chris interview them individually.

Chris, as chief medical officer reported that both were well, anxious to get home to their families, throwing themselves into their work and looking forward to getting feet dry and having a cheeseburger. In actuality Dana's response had been "Tell that bitch to fuck herself" and Rick's was of a similar vein, only with even more vulgar and inventive profanity. Ironically both the Russian and Japanese studies had shown that an increase in the use of profanity was a sign of what was generally known now as capsule isolation syndrome and was a positive way to vent. In Chris and Anna's opinion NASA psych was full of a bunch of nanny's that, seeing nothing wrong, decided to start poking their crew's working dynamic with sharp sticks to see what would happen.

One of the ways NASA had fought this over the years was to have the cap com, or capsule communicator, to be a fellow astronaut who could appreciate what the crew was going through. The only problem with that was there were no others who had been through what the crew had been through. Missy remained professional but whenever Rick or Mindy had the com and an Ares I or II astronaut was acting cap com, they seemed to talk to the Earthbound astronaut as if they were at best a talented amateur or at worst a small child.

This mild friction between Houston and Ares III came to a head when the Life Sciences division requested Mark rerun some experiments testing for sugar levels in corn samples. There would be plenty of corn for the folks in Houston to test themselves and as he had moved on to x-ray topography of the actual sugar crystals, so Mark felt it was not necessary, but on reply they insisted, and implied they felt he may have erred. This got a curt response that he was currently the universe's leading expert on colonizing other planets and interplanetary botany and they could fuck themselves before he wasted research time running the tests again.

Life Sciences had Mission Control intervene, and while Mitch also thought it was stupid as there was plenty of other work for Mark to do, he passed the request to Lewis as commander and Mindy as XO. Each sent a response, Lewis generally supporting Mark, who she referred to as NASA's leading interplanetary botanist, while Mindy asked if they were done fucking themselves.

Irene took this group unity as a great positive for their overall dynamic.

Mitch just replied "Roger that Hermes."

Annie Montrose was elated to release a PG-13 version of the exchange as she continued to build her crew into a media godsend for NASA.

The crew continued to correspond and do reports with Kay Kay, who continued to delight and amuse them as she grew into a very professional anchor for their reports. Mindy, Missy, Dana and Anna counseled her on life matters privately, urging her to stay focused on her education and each lobbying her to their alma maters, and that at her age boys were a distraction, although a nice one, and to be careful with who she chose to socialize with and date. Kay Kay had little interest in any of the boys she knew, so that had not become an issue. Alex, Chris, Rick and especially Mark became the big brothers she never had and privately promised operatic levels of intimidation to any boy foolish enough to hurt her. The on-screen chemistry between them was fun to watch and their ratings continuously improved, especially as the delay time between the ship and Earth became less and less.

As the Hermes was approximately a minute transmission time from Houston, interest in the mission began to rise again and several things happened. Alex and Mark got approval to publish papers on their initial results and Mark got approval to submit a dissertation for a doctorate in mechanical engineering with a focus on environmental. He had worked it up while still on Mars but had not applied for permission to publish until he talked to Alex and found out he was doing the same.

Another project Mark was working on was likewise approved, but the final output would still need to be ran through NASA censors. Mark told the crew about it at the next daily staffing.

"A book?"

"No, three books, maybe four, and you guys are going to be credited, so, uh, I'm looking for a huge advance. The first two parts are written, I did most of them at KK, but I need your help with the other. One is about going to Mars and our work there up to the evac, the next is the commander and me getting to KK and all we did there. The last is about your trip to Earth, back to Mars, our recovery, and then back to Earth. If Vic I wants to compile one, well then there would be four, but most of us wouldn't get credit on that."

"Uh, how much did you write in?" Commander Lewis asked.

"Oh, i just novelized the dailies, it wasn't difficult, and nothing is in it that isn't already out there."

"Except for the red smog monster?" Rick asked.

"Well yeah, I had to add something for dramatic effect, we will need to invent a working laser trebuchet before we get home if they want proof of how Commander Lewis saved us that day" Mark laughed. "Look if you don't want me to, I will delete it all now, I just figure, well, I want to buy a bigger place outside town in farm country when I get back, and"

"Will there be room there for..." Mindy started to ask, then decided against it.

"Yeah, that's the plan. Tell ya what, read what I have so far, I just sent it to each of your pads" he said as he tapped his screen.

"How much are you looking at?" Alex asked, knowing his family would want him to participate. "Six figures?"

"Closer to nine."

"Damn Watney, I like this idea!" Anna exclaimed.

"Well you guys have to put together the Vic I part, but just working off the logs it's pretty easy."

"Wait. No, just no Watney" Lewis said as she looked at the document Mark had sent her.

"What's wrong?" Beth asked. As long as it didn't get into their personal lives, she was ambivalent about it. She was already rich.

Missy rolled her eyes and laughed. "He titled the first book "To Mars and Back, A Botanist's Tale."

"Good lord Watney! I guess the second is..."

"'The Two Mavs', needs work, I admit, but the third is really great."

"'The Return of the King' Watney? Really?"

"Well those are just working titles. I'm proud of the text itself. Please read it and give me feedback. If you want anything cut out, just let me know."

That evening he explained his idea to Beth, Mindy and Missy more fully.

"Yeah, so I want to get a place in the country where we could all be, either in one big house..."

"No, but I might live next door" Missy interrupted while Beth and Mindy just smiled at each other as they were okay with the idea.

"Yeah, well I figure by the time I get it built interest in us, the mission will die down and we can go on with our lives. Whatever that is, I want it to be with you all, I mean... I'm not sure what that means or how is would work but like I said before, I'm not dropping any of you. You all mean everything to me.


	29. Chapter 29

**The Martians**

 **Chapter 29**

Two months out the bidding wars started. NASA had been licensing the crew's image for posters, tee shirts and such, and the crew got a slice of that, but once they landed, they would be hot properties in the marketing world. Watney, through a recommended agent, was able to get the sort of advance he wanted on books and even more was being offered for the movie rights for a book that no one on Earth had read yet. Then there were speaking engagements, NASA had a bunch the crew were obligated to do, but it seemed like every email dump brought a new round of universities, corporations and think tanks wanting them to speak. Each of these were independent of NASA and that made them quite profitable. Although others made more money, the crew's favorite was the maker of Barbie, as a result of the "KT" rock piles and back story that Doris had released, approached Mark about doing a Mark Watney "Ken" collectable. He refused unless the rest of the crew, including KK, had dolls as Barbie or Ken as well. Mattel agreed, with the further stipulation that the first 1000 would be numbered collectables which would have a higher cost, and thus a higher royalty to the crew, and the remainder be general issue a few months after the primary release. Mark asked that his share be given to St Judes. The rest of the crew made this stipulation as well, and on their own the company agreed that number 1 in each would be auctioned as a group to support the charity. Mark asked that a number "0"series be given to Doris, and the company was happy to do this as well.

KK thought it was weird as she never liked dolls for the most part, but thought it might be cool given that a number of people she knew from school had grown up playing with them and those being the socially popular kids she avoided, decided that this might just be the best thing ever. After she became something of a celebrity the popular kids had tried to befriend her, but Kay Kay remembered how they treated her when she was just another goth nobody so she ignored them, Her closest friends were all in space, and she would be flying out to Florida to meet them soon. Watney figured Rick, Alex and Chris would be difficult to convince but Chris was okay with it given that it would give needed attention to childhood cancer, while both Rick and Alex had young daughters who would just love it.

Missy was in the end the last hold out, but once her crew was all in, she was too, Missy just felt like it may make her appear less serious and might hurt her marketable image, Her first comment on seeing the prototype, which was a doll in a make believe EVA suit that had no helmet, was to the point.

"My boobs aren't that big!"

"No one's boobs are that big commander. Can you imagine how those would float around in reduced gravity..."?

"Shut up Watney."

The days became more hectic every week as the crew was slammed with email, actual research work, and prepping to arrive, then, they were almost home. Another two weeks and they would land by shuttle at KSC. Hermes had rotated and began retrofiring to slow down so it would be able to dock at Discovery Station/Space X, and the rotational gravity had been increased, much to Watney's displeasure. He was mobile now and walking without assistance in a boot devised and created by the doctors, with the assistance of the Houston med sciences team, but it still hurt to put additional weight on it and at 1.3 gravity the weight increase was significant. It would be worth it to avoid a wheelchair ride on arrival. No one had done that since John Glenn and Mark didn't want to be the one that broke the streak. This was a subject of debate among the physicians on the ground but both doctors on Hermes were satisfied Mark could walk the rope line into the facility from the van that would bring them from the landing strip.

The debate went back and forth for several days until it was decided a chair would be discretely nearby, but Mark could walk if he wanted to. The deciding factor was Mark's input of "Fuck you guys" whenever Houston advised him to use the wheelchair, and Houston deciding it wasn't worth sedating him in view of the whole world watching. It was agreed Chris, Dana and Alex would be on the look out to assist him if necessary, though the crew had seen him mobile for a month and none thought he would need it.

Plans for their homecoming increased as the ship drew nearer to earth and included a whirlwind tour around the country, a few supporting countries, and every morning news and talk show on any network with more than a handful of viewers. Of course, all would visit media from their hometowns, and as promised they would tour both KSC and Orlando with Kay Kay and her family. This visit actually excited some of the crew as all had been there at one time or another as children, only this time would feature them in a parade down "Main Street USA that would end up at the Star Wars section of Tomorrowland.

"So Mark, I was wondering..." Mindy asked as they both ended their work shifts and stretched out in his bunk.

"Wondering what?" he softly asked. Of the three women he was involved with each had their own personality. Missy was passionate in bed and at life in general, while Beth was very loving and romantic. Mindy was experimental and generally the wildest, and sometimes the weirdest.

"What do you know about Gemini IV?"

"Huh? That was the first spacewalk one wasn't it? James McDivitt and..."

"And Ed White. Very good! You read your NASA history text in training. You're so smart!" she giggled.

"Well, yeah, I've been to college n' shit. Why the interest in Gemini II?"

"It was the first American spacewalk, no one really knew what would happen, so it was scheduled for 10 minutes. McDivitt exited the capsule, and was out for almost 25 minutes but"

"I remember, Houston was begging him to come back in and he kept taking pictures of everything."

"Right, the combination of weightlessness, floating, and the high oxygen content of his suit gave him euphoria, so since then we've had more nitrogen and helium in the mix. It's like the opposite of what divers get because of the unrestricted blood flow to the brain and the O2. When they finally got him to come in, he said it was the saddest moment of his life."

"So..."

"Well, Beth and Missy are at the con, everyone else is asleep for red shift, the core shaft has no gravity and is high O2... oh, and I have a sleeping bag from Orion so if two people were trying to achieve ultimate euphoria, purely as a scientific experiment you understand, they wouldn't drift away from each other" she smirked.

"Well... if it's for science." Watney smiled.

No scientists other than Mark and Mindy would ever learn that they had worked long and hard to confirm the hypothesis, but several hours later Anna would be coming up to the green room and woke the couple with a shout of "Jesus! Watney! Put some damn clothes on!"

This had the effect of waking most of the ship as both Mark and Mindy struggled to find their clothes, barely saving further embarrassment as the groggy crew came to see what the hubbub was about. It's not easy getting dressed in zero gravity when one leg is in a walking cast, but the couple managed to do it in record time as Anna smirked.

As the crew worked their way to the core, from both the living pods as well as the bridge, the couple was saved by a happy accident.

"Oh good, you're all awake! Come forward to the com observation port, there's something you need to see.

Science fiction movies got one thing wrong, always. Ships near the Earth are always show seeing a gigantic array of stars. It is not like that at all usually. On Earth, you generally see stars only at night or during an eclipse. During normal daylight hours, the Sun's brightness overpowers the more distant and hence weaker light from the stars, so really there is no night in space, at least not in the Mars range of the Sun. The crew had all seen and been amazed by the brilliance of the Martian night when its own shadow blocked the sun and the sky became illuminated with an umbrella of stars, but traveling in the Hermes, towards the sun, the sky was just black, and rather boring.

Until a few minutes before when the moon crossed their path for a few minutes and the sky lit up. Looking through the view port, the view was breathtaking, each stared at the vastness of space with a clarity of stars they had not seen since their last night on Mars, and that most would not see again.

"How long will it last?" someone asked.

"About 35 minutes, then we will be out of the shadow of the moon" Beth replied. "It's really just a coincidence of the calendar that we are seeing it at all."

"Eclipses don't last that long."

"We are further away. Bigger shadow."

When it was over" Mark whispered "this may be the saddest moment of my life".

Within days the crew entered the final phase of their journey. Although the demand for interviews was up, usually only one or two participated at a time as gear was being stowed and samples in labs returned to storage for their trip home. Missy, Mindy and Rick also demanded a through scrub down of the ship as they didn't want Ares III/Vic I to have the reputation that Ares I did for leaving the ship slovenly for the refurb crew. Because of the load, two shuttles would be used, one for crew and about a quarter of the material they brought back, the other just for samples. As a cost savings measure it was suggested that the Orion III be loaded up, refueled and landed, however this was nixed due to safety concerns. The samples were a cross section of all on both shuttles, so if one crashed, the other would bring material home. In the end, both landed just fine.

The Orion III would be refueled and would return by remote operation, supposedly so NASA could study it for the construction of a new generation of MDV/MAV's based upon it, but really it was so it would have a well-earned retirement at the National Air and Space Museum.

NASA decided to forego the usual period of isolation as being pointless, however the crew would stay in seclusion, and have all the standard booster vaccinations and immunity boosters to ward off everyday illness that could be fatal with their suppressed immune systems. After the welcome home celebration, which the crew was still calling 'Princess KK's Coronation Ball', they would be public again, but first would get the regular, although abbreviated, routine in the astronaut apartments for a few days just to get readjusted to gravity and checked out by the medical and psych staff. During this time they would be surrounded by family and friends, and making multiple media appearances by remote. After that, Orlando with KK and her family, all filmed, then slung around the world in PR appearances. It would go on for several weeks, and although astronauts didn't have a long shelf life media wise, this crew was different. Once they finished the NASA appearances, they would do a book tour in support of their newly published works and meet with Hollywood types bidding to make a movie, or movies, out of it.

What the crew really wanted to do was get a beer and a cheeseburger, then lay on a beach roasting somewhere.

At lunch the day before docking, which was the first meal the entire crew had at the same time due to work schedules for several weeks, a discussion came up of who they wanted to play them in the film. Most had some idea, none of which really looked or acted like them, and finally Mark was prodded as to who he wanted.

"I don't really care; we all know it's going to suck. They won't get anything right" He grinned.

"Nope, no copping out Mark, we all told, you have to. Not letting you get by without an answer" Missy laughed.

"No, I really don't care, as long as they are young, good looking, you know. Oh, and not the guy that played me in "Watney's Space Harem."

The room fell silent.

Finally, Rick asked, "You know about that?"

"Yeah, somebody from Vic One had it loaded on the entertainment files."

Everyone looked around at each other, when Anna finally raised her hand.

"Guilty! It came out right after our crew was announced and we started training, my roommate from the academy sent it to me. She thought it would be funny. I thought it would be funny to surprise Mark one movie night, just as a joke, but, well, never got around to it. When did you watch it Mark?"

"Why did you watch it Mark?" Dana asked.

"Oh, like the second or third time I had the day watch. You guys were EVA so I searched for my entertainment files, I just labeled them 'Watney' and you'll never guess what popped up as the first entry on that search. Commander, the woman that plays your part is nothing like you at all."

"Shut up Watney!" Missy laughed.

"Really Mark? You're comparing us to porn actors?"

"Oh no Mindy, there's no comparison."

"Well I would hope not!"

"They are relatively quiet."

"Okay! That's enough! Who's looking forward to the Coronation Ball?" Anna asked with a giggle.

"Think they will do a sequel?" Mark asked almost under his breath.

"Part II came out just as we left" Rick cackled.

"So, Mark, tell us about this Italian place that is catering?"

"Any good?" Beth asked.

"I don't know, Marissa won't let me watch it" Rick giggled.

"I was asking Mark about the Italian place!"

"I know" Rick grinned.

"One thing I remember about it..." Mark started to say before Missy interrupted.

"That's enough Mark. We don't need to hear your sordid details!" She blushed.

"Oh, no, I wasn't talking about the movie per se', it's just, you know how when you pull up video, audio or book files on that system, it tells you when you last viewed it?"

"Mark!" Anna and Mindy both said.

"What did it say?" Alex asked, with a smile that could make a cat disappear.

"It was last viewed the Tuesday before the Commander and I arrived. That was movie night back then wasn't XO?"

"Watney... I swear" Mindy exclaimed, her blush along with Anna and Dana's revealing he told the truth.

"Well? Was the woman that played the commander at least attractive?" Missy finally asked.

"Well she was very talented, I can see why she got the job, but no, you are far more attractive." Dana said diplomatically.

"I thought she over acted in places and really was a poor commander overall. That ship would have been soaked in baby oil in a real weightless environment" Beth added. "Some people just aren't made for command."

"They never get the science right, wait when did you see it?" Watney asked.

"Oh, uh..." Beth blushed. "Well, we were on Earth a couple months... I'm not going to answer that. Hey, does anyone know what day it is? You mentioning Tuesday movie night reminded me of that. I don't know what day it is."

"Its October third and" Missy said.

"No, the day of the week."

The crew all looked at each other and realized none of them had any idea. They had been running on SOL dates and mission dates so long, none of them knew the day of the week. No one would have known the month or date had it not been on all the computer screens, and for the most part, no one cared about that either.

After a pregnant pause, Alex spoke for all of them.

"Weird."


	30. Chapter 30

**Well this is it, the last chapter and epilogue. I don't see coming back to this story. I'm happy with most of it. Thanks for reading, and please leave some comments. I love hearing from you-**

 **-JPA**

 **THE MARTIANS**

 **CHAPTER 30**

The first three months of the Hermes return trajectory had flown by as the crew, in particular Mark, Alex and Missy, threw themselves into research with the rest of the crew assisting. The last month was like being stuck in an elevator on the way back from a dentist with the muzak track stuck on a loop of "Theme from A Summer Place." It was tedious. For weeks the crew had busied itself as it slowly watched the distance from Hermes to Earth shrink at an excruciatingly slow pace. As the engines of the Hermes were pointed toward Earth in order to slow it for hook up, the first real view of Earth was the day before arrival, and all of the crew was crowded forward in the com for hours in order to view in wonder their home.

With approximately 5 hours to dock, Lewis called the crew forward for an unscheduled meeting. As he had been in quarters reading a book, Mark was the last to arrive, just a moment after Dana and Chris.

"Thanks for coming guys. It goes without saying that this is the finest crew any NASA commander has ever had, and I want to thank you. Your dedication and professionalism is unparalleled in the history of exploration, but that's not why we're here."

"What's up commander? What did Mark do this time?" Rick grinned.

Lewis waited for everyone, including herself, to stop chuckling.

"Well so far, he hasn't missed the transfer to Space X, but I guess we should put a team on making sure he doesn't" she grinned, "but this time, it's not Mark. It's you Rick, oh, and our other pilot Anna. I just received word from Houston. Ares IV's launch window is three years, and the final training roster is up. You're listed as primary pilot and alternate command if Johnson has to bail, and I'm getting word that Johnson may bail. Okay, it's not public knowledge and won't be, but Johnson is going to bail. Health issue, not enough to kill him, but enough to ground. Congratulations Rick, it appears you're going to command Ares IV. You'll be great."

"Are you stupid? Why the fuck would you willingly do...that fuck?" Mark asked, shocked that his friend would volunteer to go back.

"Flying is what I do. I put in for it last time we were on Earth."

"Marissa is going to kill you" Alex said.

"No, we... she understands. Of course this time we will make sure we don't make two trips. But then I retire. I will have gone to Mars more than anyone and logged more PIC time than anyone in history. I, I think that will be enough."

"Congratulations Rick, I think."

"Oh, and it won't be announced for a few weeks, but you're a full bird now. Probably make the jump to General by the time you get back again, so congrats on that too" Missy smiled.

"That's really great Rick, you deserve it" Anna smiled.

As everyone else jumped in, Missy held her hand up for silence.

"One more thing, Lt Colonel Anna Washburn is listed as primary command for Ares V. That is a year after Rick's return and will be a six month mission on surface. Congratulations to both of you, I can think of no better officers to lead those crews. If you are like I was a few years ago, you're wondering if you are up for the enormity of the task. Everyone here knows you both are. Good luck and Godspeed."

"Woohoo!" Anna exclaimed as everyone congratulated her as well, and also declared her crazy for wanting to return.

"Wait, 'Lt Colonel"?" she asked.

"Yep, you're promotion was also in the email. Enjoy it. If you're anything like Martinez, you won't hold it long before your next jump.

The docking at Discovery was almost anticlimactic, Rick, with Alex guiding him and Chris calling out distances from the docking bay, brought the ship in with the skill he had used to pilot her for nearly 3 years. Sighs were exhaled and every set of shoulders on board slumped forward for a few moments with the realization that they were almost home, almost done with Hermes, and almost done with space.

The relief and refub crew was greeted and the crew began medical checks upon the arrival of the two shuttles sent for them and their research materials. The refurb and Discovery crews were both friendly but no one felt like talking much, although group pics and photos of individuals were taken so that all would have keep sake from the Hermes arrival. None of the Hermes or Vic One crews expected to keep any of their copies, other than the ones shot with their fellow crew members.

A day at Discovery getting further inoculations and boosters while refurb stowed the research, and they were off. After a couple hours of weightless flight on the shuttle, then 30 minutes or so of abject terror during reentry, and the crew was 'feet dry' at KSC. On the return flight Mark would sit between Mindy and Beth, each of them squeezing his hands during the horror that was re-entry. His eyes were closed and he gripped their hands for comfort as well. Re-entry was the worst and most dangerous part of the journey, as well as the most terrifying.

There had been some discussion on what order the crew members would depart the shuttle as they would be in view of the telephotos of the press corps and public, as well as the NASA photogs at the foot of the stairs, with Annie and the PR department wanting one order and normal procedure calling for another. In the end it was decided that Hermes crew, having departed Earth last, would be nearly the last off the ship, with Vic One going first. The last two off would be Lewis and Watney. This meant for Annie Montrose that one of her celebrities, Mindy, would be in the first group off, another, Beth, would be in the second group, while the two astronauts that most fascinated the public would be last. Annie liked this plan as it would keep the crowd focused on each as they departed. As the crew members stepped down the metal stairs each name was announced over the loud speakers at the viewing area, although over the idling engines of their escort craft the crew did not hear it, and each name drew cheers that got progressively louder.

Finally, at the door, with his crew and other med staff at the bottom of the stairs in case his leg gave out and he fell, Mark looked to Missy and though he wanted to get out of the ship and breath real air more than anything, offered her the doorway.

"I've been on Mars longer; you go first Commander."

"Leave in order of rank, I go last. Associate Commander" Lewis grinned.

"Together?" Mark asked as he extended a hand towards her while the flight crew just stared wishing they would get off the ship. They hated re-entry as well.

"Together. As it should be" Lewis replied, taking Mark's offered hand and with him stepping through the portal to the top of the stairs.

They could see the crowd and waived with their spare hands, then held their joined ones aloft in unity. They couldn't hear it of course, but could see the crowd waving back and cheering.

The air smelled of JP1 exhaust from the escort planes and from the shuttle's landing retros, and nothing like the sterile atmosphere they had lived in for so long. Mark closed his eyes and relished the polluted air, breathing deep, then opened his eyes to see Lewis doing the same. A nod between them said 'Let's get out of here' and they went down the steps, Mark gingerly walking on his leg but generally doing okay. Any pain he felt was overcome by the elation of finally finishing their mission.

A van drove the crew and their handlers to the reception area where they exited in the reverse of the order they had left the shuttle, and walked the last 50 yards or so to the primary reception hall that held more medical staff, a slew of officials, and their families. On this walk they could clearly see and hear the crowd behind the yellow caution line cheering and holding up signs welcoming them back. This crowd was mostly NASA employees, a few lucky tourists, and lesser VIP's. The crew smiled and waved back. The smiles had nothing to do with the crowd, the crew was just happy to be home. Still, they smiled and waved and looked futilely for a recognizable face in the crowd while they walked in the sweltering Florida heat until they were in the shadow of the large garage type doorway of the reception building.

Here, air conditioning and relative darkness hit them, and they were, for the most part, blind while their eyes slowly adjusted. In addition, because of all the cheers they may as well have been deaf. Once they were able to see clearly, two lines of red velvet rope held back people they did know, or at least recognize. Mostly higher politicos, congress and senate members, a smattering of camera crews, reporters and the ilk, NASA division chiefs, CEO's of critical vender corporations, and at the far end, their families and friends.

All the crew focused on their loved one's naturally and smiled or politely waved, at best, at the questions and congratulations shouted at them. Annie Montrose and Venkat Kapoor approached with a smile and said on behalf of NASA, "Welcome home crew. If you'll come this way, we have an area set up so you can see your families and catch up a bit, then we will do a press conference in an hour or… Dr Watney?"

Mark ignored Annie after her first words as he spotted at the edge of the crowd, just behind the red barrier, a diminutive Polynesian girl grinning from ear to ear clapping and shouting, along with two older persons that appeared to be her parents. He had always figured her to be taller for some reason. As soon as he recognized her, he broke from the crew and limped as quickly as he could towards her.

The girl smiled and started to slip out to meet him, only to be stopped by an Air Force security officer assigned to the rope line. Not knowing quite what to do, the girl pleaded with her eyes to Mark, and the crew that was now following him. She was rescued by Rick and Anna, both wearing rank insignia significantly higher than the second lieutenant blocking her way, who in no uncertain terms made it clear that the young girl was crew and should be allowed in. The young officer knew neither was in his chain of command, and likewise knew that both would make the jump to general rank long before he exited the service and were thus people he should not piss off. Just as Rick was ready to tear into the young officer, who was only following orders, the guard received a message on his ear piece, turned to the trio behind the rope line, and told them they could come through. The girl ran into Mark's, and then the rest of the crew's, waiting arms. Mark clutched her as hard as he could as tears filled both their eyes.

A quick acting reporter for the Jacksonville newspaper snapped away and was as a result placed in the running for a Pulitzer that year, only to lose out to pictures of refugees from the war in South America. Still, it was a memorable shot that got the photojournalist the cover of National Geographic in addition to worldwide publication. The cover photo was captioned simply "Welcome Home," and filled the front page of the Jacksonville paper in the morning.

"Hi, we haven't really met, but I'm Mark."

"Hey, I'm Kay Kay. It's good to meet you in person finally. You're taller in real life."

"Thanks, I… Thanks for talking me through the launch and keeping us company on Mars. I mean it, you're a life saver."

"It was nothing, glad to help" Kay Kay smiled.

Mark introduced Kay Kay to the crew, and all wanted to squeeze the stuffing out of her. Finally, Annie tried to gather the crew up and have Kay Kay come back at the appointed time, only to have Lewis intervene.

"Kay Kay, you're with us" Missy said over the noise of the crowd as she and Mark each took a hand and led her and her parents away and into the family reception room.

It was quieter there and all were embraced by their families and the celebrations began. Kay Kay and her parents sat with Mark and his, while everyone else reunited with their own. Catherine's mother Doris flew in with Mark's parents at his mother's insistence and all told her how moved they were at her daughter's life and story. Over the next hour everyone was introduced to the crew's mascot and protégé, which Kay Kay thought was weird, but she was so very happy to finally see her friends in real life and not just on video.

Bob was not there by design. Missy's parents had both travelled from Missoula to see their daughter and brought a cousin she had grown up with.

"Hey Meredith, thanks for coming, were you able to get it?"

"Yeah, the jeweler thought it was odd to leave a hole in it, you have a stone to place there?"

"Yeah, if I measured it right, and I'm pretty sure I did. It's for our princess over there, no one else knows about it."

"Your crew doesn't know?"

"Nope. Well, they know some, but this is a bit shady, so I left them out of it." Missy smiled as she hugged her cousin and took a small bag from her.

"A bit shady?" her cousin asked with a smirk.

"Okay, a lot shady. Totally sketchy in fact. If anyone asks, there was a big ass green rock on it when you gave it to me, k?"

"Not a problem. I remember that big ass green rock well. Looked like jade I think" she smiled.

"Glassier than jade, and the color of lime jello" Missy grinned.

"Right, jade colored glass, that looked like lime jello. Exactly. I remember it well."

The reunions were all too brief as a day full of events was just beginning. Next were showers. Most had not had a long shower since leaving earth, and none at all in a few days as the ship's rotation was ceased for docking. The need to feel clean became overpowering the longer the astronauts met with their families and realized the difference in what they felt was clean and what the rest of the world did.

"What's that?" Dana asked as she saw Missy messing with something in the dressing room following bath time.

"Oh, a side project. I figured since tonight is the coronation ball our princess needed a proper crown." Missy replied, showing her work to the other women, all being impressed.

"My cousin did pageants as a kid, so I measured one of the olivines after I polished and shaped it. Flight research log says half of it was consumed by testing. No need for anyone to mention that. Anyway, Meredith got one of her jewelers from those days to make this up with a mounting for it, and it snapped right in."

It was a tiara covered with crystals, except for a large, lime green, mostly clear, stone at the top in the center. On Earth a similar olivine that was cut and faceted would be worth maybe a hundred bucks. Given the provenance of this one, even though it was just cut to shape and polished, it was probably worth millions. Of course, no one would ever officially know where this one had come from.

The press conference was dull and mercifully short. It was for the general media for the most part so there were not a lot of technical questions asked as there normally would be, and as the reporters asking were not well versed in the mission, it became more of a questioning about human interest story angles. The crew would have been much happier addressing scientific inquiries from academic journals, and would in a few days, but this day was all about "how do you feel" and "what was it like." Not a single question about Alex's groundbreaking discoveries regarding non-ferrous minerals in the surface material, or Mark's work on removing perchlorates from the soil so as to make it possible to grow plants, but a whole bunch of "What did it feel like to be stranded on Mars?" and "Did you ever lose hope?"

These were repeatedly answered with "I didn't like it" and "No, not with this crew, there was no need to lose hope."

"Are you looking forward to meeting the President tonight?"

"We're meeting the President tonight?"

Annie answered that the crew had not been told that the President was flying in to attend their celebration.

This President was well liked by the crew as she seemed to be able to both read and write, as well as use actual grammar to make complete sentences, so they were okay with it but didn't really care. As a result, they all sort of looked back and forth waiting for each other to respond, as if they were deer stuck in the head lights of an oncoming car. Finally, Mark stepped up to the plate and pissed NASA off.

"Well it is good and proper for the leaders of the various Earthican governments to be present to witness and celebrate the coronation of Princess Kay Kay of Mars. Speaking for the Princess, I know she looks forward to establishing peaceful relations between the worlds. I haven't seen the schedule yet but hopefully tomorrow we can tour Kennedy Space Center with the Princess, and of course Madame President is welcome to join us."

Teddy rolled his eyes in exasperation, but Annie was soon on the phone to the White House Press Secretary to give them a heads up. Plans and schedules were rearranged, and the President joined the crew and Kay Kay for at least part of their visit to KSC.

Following the press conference, the crew went through their first round of psych evaluations. Irene would have preferred to do that before the conference but there was not time. The crew had held so many conferences from space that there was little fear of any psych issues arising during it.

The crew all lied like dogs during their evaluations, which was anticipated. The seasoned pros of Irene's team knew they were lying, expected it, and knew that what they were lying about and how they were doing so was as telling as any actual truth was. All were found, as expected, to be D deprived, and further vitamin shots were prescribed as a result. All to some degree or another had separation anxiety and isolation disorders, and this was expected as well. Missy and Mark were practically agoraphobic, while the rest just didn't really like the crowds and were uncomfortable and slow to adjust to the open spaces now available to them. Disorientation at the change in surroundings was found as well, and this too was across the entire crew. In the end, no great unsolvable psych issues were found, and none outside what was perceived to be the normal spectrum given their experiences. That there was no one to compare their reactions to meant this was a very soft conclusion, so all would be monitored and have sessions with Irene and her team in the coming weeks.

Medically, with the exception of Mark's leg, all were physically fine. A bit underweight but that was anticipated given that their caloric intake fell as their revulsion to space food rose. It was decided that Mark's leg had healed more than anticipated given the crew staff's care, but that on Earth he would have been walking fine by now. This too would be monitored but no problems were foreseen.

Before dinner, or the coronation as the crew called it, there was a reception with the grand high muckity mucks of Washington, NASA and a few from the rest of the world, including China, who had given up a heavy launch to assist with refurb and resupply. Photos were taken with the crew for each's 'I Love Me' walls, and the crew demanded Kay Kay be in many of them, especially the President and her Senators from Hawaii. The crew wore the standard NASA astronaut blue jump suits, while Kay Kay wore the skirt, blouse and blazer she wore when anchoring the crew's reports. Both the crew and Kay Kay's attire bore the patches of both Ares III and Victoria I.

At dinner that night, as promised catered in part by Mark's two favorite Chicago pizzarias, the President spoke, because that's what Presidents do, and when she got to the usual line about 'touching the face of god' the crowd got weepy, because that's what crowds of politicians on camera do, all the while Mark and Kay Kay, along with the crew, stuffed their faces with the best pizza any of them could remember having, because that's what teen girls and returning astronauts do.

The Ambassador from Germany spoke as well as the Director of the ESA and Teddy on behalf of NASA. Finally, the crew got to the microphone, with Missy speaking on behalf of all. She read a speech off a teleprompter that she had prepared with the assistance of Annie's team as the Hermes neared Earth, and that all the media already had copies of. She only deviated from it to again thank NASA, and especially the Hermes and Victoria I crews on behalf of her and Mark. She also took the time to especially thank Rick and Mindy for their leadership, dedication and professionalism in guiding the respective ships on their journey, and all of their families for their sacrifice. Each crew member also got a few words of gratitude as Missy wanted to leave no one out, even though all had been thanked repeatedly for the last year and a half and didn't need to hear it again. Missy just wanted to say it all publicly.

Lewis then turned to Mark and added, "I would be remiss if I didn't thank my colleague and partner on this trip. Mark, you kept us alive. I can never repay you anymore than I could repay Rick, Alex, Beth, Chris, Mindy, Dana and Anna. You are the spirit of discovery and without your indefatigable efforts, we would both still be at Ares III base, and would never leave. You have my never-ending gratitude, admiration, and love."

With that, even Mark's eyes teared up. Enough so that he put down his fork and stopped eating long enough to accept the hug that Lewis walked across the stage to give him. That was the other photo that ran in the press the next day.

Missy got back on script and with Mark and Mindy introduced Kay Kay, who was already well known, and went through a spiel of naming her "Princess Kalani Kay Kay Akina, Princess of Mars, Duchess of Schiaparelli, Defender of the Faith, and Martian Ambassador to Earth." During this Missy handed Mark the tiara her cousin had provided, and Mark placed it on her head. All of the crew and most of the crowd were giggling at this, but Teddy woke the next day to calls from several of the world's space agencies, each asking in their own way "What the fuck?"

During the "ceremony" the President was seen laughing like she was at the White House Press Dinner and endorsed Kay Kay's new rank with pleasure. The next morning, she toured the main visitor's area at KSC with the crew for a half hour or so, did a brief pressor with them and Kay Kay, then flew back to DC. The crew took Kay Kay and her parents all over the facility as promised, with a team of docents guiding them as none of the crew knew their way around there, and after a couple days rest, timed so that Orlando would coincide with the weekend crowds, did Disney with a parade through Main Street USA. The crew and their families were spread out over several horse drawn carriages, the last carrying just Lewis, Watney and a crown wearing Kay Kay.

While there, Kay Kay shared autographs will all the princesses, and the crew's arms nearly fell off from all they signed. Another presser was held at the Star Wars section of Tomorrowland revealing Barbie Mars collection, with the zero numbered set presented to Doris McCallister, with the number one set announced to be auctioned for St Judes. It was also announced that the crew and Kay Kay were giving their royalties on the limited edition to the same cause, buying tremendous PR for NASA.

The next few days Kay Kay saw the rest of Orlando with her parents, the crew recovered, rested and was interviewed by every news service in the world. A welcome home show was filmed with Kay Kay in which the crew showed her through the research that had been conducted so far, as well as letting her handle a bunch of samples from Mars, showing the differences between the soil texture and composition between Ares III and KK, and along Odyssey path. The vast majority of NASA employees would never actually touch the sample containers so that was a big deal to the high schooler. At the end of the filming, after the cameras were off and everyone mingled, Missy approached Kay Kay with Mark.

"Hey, can we borrow you for a second?"

"Uh sure," she smiled.

Missy and Mark led her to a back corner of the storage area and Missy drew one small sample container from the racks they were stored in by date, location and number.

"We know you probably don't want to be charged with keeping secrets, but you have to promise to never tell about this, okay?"

"Uh, okay" she replied, confused

"Does this look familiar?"

"Uh, it's pretty" Kay Kay said of the green, unpolished, uncut olivine.

"Ever seen a green rock like that before?" Mark asked.

"It kinda looks like… umph!" Kay Kay stammered as her eyes bulged.

"We took a vote and wanted you to know. You really are our Princess, you're going to go far in life. Oh, but you can't tell anyone as we're breaking a dozen rules and probably a couple federal laws. Got it? Oh, and you might want to get your folks to get a safe deposit box for your crown."

"Got it! Thanks! And thanks for letting me,,, you know, hang out with you guys."

"Girl, you earned that" Missy said as she wrapped her arms around her, "Now, you have to do me a favor. I know everyone has been trying to sell you on their colleges, but don't go to Navy, you won't fit in there. You would do great but you wouldn't enjoy it. You are too much of a free spirit for the program, nothing wrong with that, but you're more like Mark or Mindy than Rick or me."

"And don't go to Northwestern either" Mark said with a grin, "It's too cold and you would freeze to death! But you can't tell anyone I told you not to go, there are bets about where you will choose and,,, well I hope to lose that one. Great school but you, well, you aren't made for Chicago in the winter."

A final dinner in Florida and the Akinas flew home with more hugs and more thanks, then the crew set off on a tour of the nation and world doing promotional work for NASA, then a book tour to promote their story. That would be their work for the next several months, even though all wanted to get back to Houston and get back to their real jobs. The crew would next see their protégé in person would be a year and a half later. Mark got curious one day and contacted astrodynamics to find out what Earth day the Martian KK day would fall upon. Mar's year is 1.88 of an Earth year, and its day right at a half hour longer, so it took some ciphering. It worked out to be late May and checking both his friends' schedule and the school schedule in Hawaii concocted a scheme that worked out well.

Kay Kay had worked hard and would be Valedictorian. Her online tutors were all proud of this accomplishment and wanted to celebrate it somehow, so when Mark made the calls, all agreed. The school was contacted, and the principal was happy to help and keep a secret. A request was made to Teddy and while he wouldn't agree to the request, he did agree to look the other way. So it was that Kay Kay, none the wiser, arrived at her high school gym with her parents, put her cap and gown on over her usual black tee and board shorts, with heels that she hated. She was so excited she didn't notice the two little spots of Velcro her mother had glued to her gown. Annie Montrose had personally helped her write her speech via email and video conference, and by the program that was printed she was to deliver it just before the convocation by the principal and "Special Guests." Kay Kay never saw the Order of Convocation program that was handed out to everyone when they arrived, so she didn't even know there were special guests.

Kay Kay had sent invitations to the crew and some of the NASA staff and knew it would be too long of a trip for them to make just for the occasion, but was a still little disappointed that the people she considered to be her best friends were not there on what had now become a big night for her. She understood though and planned to email them a video that was being shot by the school as each had requested it. She was just nervous enough to not notice a few extra chairs on the stage, but by this time, Kay Kay was an experienced speaker and delivered her speech with confidence and poise.

Until the last two sentences.

As she spoke, and all of her fellow students ignored her, as that's what graduating students do when one of their own has to speak and they have to listen, a murmur when up in the crowd. Kay Kay looked at the crowd and realized they were all staring past her, just as a voice whispered from over her shoulder;

"Is this the Princess Kay Kay Day Celebration?"

Kay Kay's eyes got huge as she turned in shock to see the crew standing in NASA blazers behind her, each bearing both the Ares III and Vic I patches. The crew had walked quietly onto the stage from the wings and were glad they were able to maintain surprise until the last minute. The audience failed to give it away only because most were as shocked as Kay Kay to see them there.

"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! What are.. Oh my god! Thank you for coming!" she shouted as she hugged each with her eyes flooding with tears of joy.

"Miss Akina, perhaps you could introduce your friends to your classmates, they have come to our school to assist with the convocation of diplomas today, and we are proud to have them with us" the principal suggested.

Kay Kay excitedly tore through the crew's names, introducing each and listing their specialty on the mission. Then Missy, on behalf of the crew and NASA stepped to the mic and spoke briefly about the pride each student should have and that this was only the beginning, they would face many challenges, but this crew was proof that all challenges could be overcome with hard work, determination, and learning. When she was done, she turned back to Kay Kay and the principal.

"Kay Kay, you may not remember it, but when Mark and I first arrived at, uh, KK, or Ares IV as it was then known, command was transferred to me. However, it was delayed because Mark and I were not in proper uniform. A convocation is, among other things, a passing of the torch from one generation to another. We are happy to assist with this, and we know the future is in good hands, but, at present, you are likewise out of uniform. Doctor Johannson, Doctor Park, would you assist young Kay Kay?"

Each stepped forward and on the Velco of her gown placed mission patches from Ares IV and Victoria I.

"Thank you Doctors, Miss Kay Kay, you are now in proper uniform. It may interest you to know those particular patches I cut from one of the jump suits I wore while working at the site that now bears your name. Wear them with pride and honor. They have travelled a long way to be here with you, I know you will do them justice" Mark said as Kay Kay beamed with pride at the gift.

"You have gotten over the shyness you had when we first met Kay Kay, but I know you want to get back to your friends, get your diploma and go celebrate. I ask you bear with us just a moment further. As you know it is against NASA policy to give away any research samples gathered in space, but there is nothing that says we can't loan them. We ask that you accept on behalf of your school, this olivine stone that was gathered by Mark on the day of our arrival at KK, to be on permanent loan to your school, in hopes that it may inspire many more to follow the path to knowledge and wisdom."

As Missy said this, Rick came forward with a wood and glass box that displayed the rock, along with a plaque identifying it by serial number, Sol date, Earth date and location it was found. A second plaque bore the emblems of the two ships, as well as the engraved signatures of the crew. Rick handed it off to Missy, who leaned forward and gave it to Kay Kay.

"If you look around, maybe someday you will find the other half of it" Missy said.

Kay Kay looked, thought for a moment about the color and general shape, then on realizing the dual meaning of Missy's words, remembered seeing the very same rock in storage at KSC, and grinned big enough to make a cat disappear.

Each graduate's name was read by an assistant principal and as they crossed the stage the principal handed them their diplomas and the grads entered a gauntlet of 9 sets of hands to shake. Kay Kay got hugs instead.

For the next several days, by plan, the crew hung out in Hawaii, basically vacationing, only this time with Kay Kay and her family as their tour guides. One evening the hotel hosted a luau, and Kay Kay pointed out she had never been to one as it wasn't something natives really did, it was more for tourists. Still everyone had a great time, and it was there that a long running bet with the crew was finally settled.

"So you start at the Air Force Academy in a couple weeks, right?" Rick asked.

"Uh…"

"No, Annapolis, tell them Kay Kay" Missy smiled, knowing that was not her choice either.

"Actually, uh, well, I don't want to upset anyone, but, well I really liked all of the schools I visited and it was,,, I'm starting Stanford in August" she finally said.

"Hells yes!" Beth said, "Go Beth, Go Beth, Go Beth" she sang as she pumped her fists in the air.

"But I'm going to do grad school at Caltech"

"Fuck yes!" Missy shouted.

"In your face Cardinals" Mindy announced with glee.

Once their lives calmed down, Mark, Mindy, Beth moved into a ranch on farmland an hour's drive from Houston where Mark, using his book advance, had built a mansion. Missy built next door but ended up just moving in too. They were quiet about their situation, and no one outside the crew ever asked. Beth left NASA and became more reclusive, just running her company. Mindy stayed with NASA doing PR and training work along with Mark, and they continued to do film work with Kay Kay at a distance. Missy also stayed with NASA but retired from the military and went into mission planning and training.

Alex received a permanent placement to NASA from the ESA and continued his research, now with his family in Houston with him. Rick and Anna began training for Ares IV and V respectively. Missy was one of their main instructors. Chris and Dana stayed as consultants to NASA but took positions at a nearby med school as instructors, doing hospital rotations as well. They would marry about a year after the return from space and their daughter arrived just a few months after Beth gave birth to Mark Jr. Mindy had Melissa Elizabeth just a few weeks after that. Missy had a son, named after both her and Mark's fathers, about 6 months after the Beck's child arrived. All the kids would grow up together and felt love and adoration from multiple parents.

It wasn't the relationship that any of them wanted, but it was the one they had, and it worked. Mark doted on all the kids, and the women in his life, and none of them ever got tired of each other. They had their ups and downs but lived happily ever after.

 **EPILOGUE**

It had been almost three years since their return and life had a rhythm that was pleasing to all at the ranch. The crew stayed close and didn't really venture outside each other as far as developing friendships. Irene thought this isolation was unhealthy, but any efforts at getting them back into the community had failed. It wasn't that they didn't like and enjoy meeting people, it was that they had no singular point of reference with anyone else. Still, all but Beth were involved with NASA in one or more ways and worked harmoniously with others. It was hard to say it was a problem, but it was out of the ordinary and Irene watched for issues to develop that never did.

Ares IV was scheduled to depart Space X/Discovery at 15:38 Houston time that afternoon. Rick and his new crew had launched from KSC two days previous and stowed the last of their personal gear that night. The ship was stocked, inventoried and ready for its 14-month mission. They would spend 60 days on Mars before returning. Mark and Missy were expected to be in Mission Control and act as Cap Coms for the launch, although the Flight Director would be the official Cap Com and they would just talk on a private channel. Both were looking forward to it, although they both thought Rick was an idiot for going back.

Marissa would also be there, along with the kids, and would live at the spare house that Missy had built at the ranch for the duration of the mission. Beth's company jet would be available to fly both Marissa and Rick's families in for visits, and everyone there would dote on the kids. It would work.

The problem was it was intern selection day, and Mark hated selecting interns. Specifically, he hated having an intern, His first, appointed shortly after the crew's return from Houston, was given to him from Annie's PR department where he was partially assigned. She was interning for the year as opposed to the summer ones (which weren't as bad in Mark's opinion) and it became clear early on that her goal was to write a memoir about Mark. Mark already had a memoir and didn't want another, so she was canned.

The previous year, he avoided having one, which made the Educational Outreach people irate as most of the ones applying were doing so in hopes of working with the Ares III/Vic I crews.

This year the hammer was dropped. Mark would have one, and he would help pick them. And they would be an annual rather than seasonal.

He had been given reports compiled from their applications which removed any information that might identify them individually, so all it had was their academic credentials, but not what school. It gave an overall opinion of their schools and all were highly rated in their specific majors. An affidavit was attached to each, signed to show they understood false information would be prosecuted as fraud, but their actual signatures were redacted.

It was a truly blind system so one could claim favoritism or special considerations, but it left a lot to be desired in what to expect from the actual intern.

Mark reviewed the stack of 20 or so with Annie watching him to make sure he did it. He had already said he wanted no communications or marketing majors or writers, only botany and engineering majors. He might be willing to consider another hard science, but there were enough applicants to satisfy his request.

They all looked the same, except one that was buried in the middle. This person reported some work with an aerospace group, in a media setting, but was an aeronautical engineering major with a 4.0 from a top ranked school. They had done a summer internship the year before at Ames. He would have rejected it just for the media experience, but there was something about it…

He looked at the signature line. Even though it was just a big black mark it… The line. It was broken up like the copier had not been able to make a complete line that thin except….

He studied it further while Annie watched, then without looking at the others said "This one. Hire her."

"Mark you should look at the rest, then we need to interview the top three or so for"

"Nope. This one, I don't need to look further. Send the rest to other departments… they are in the auditorium?"

"Yes, the plan is for each department to interview their top picks then we will deci"

"Let's go. We can tell her ourselves" Mark said as he got up and Annie followed, protesting that as usual he wasn't following the program.

"How do you know it's a her anyway, there is nothing about gender on there" Annie exclaimed, to which Mark just smiled and stared.

The auditorium was just on the other side of the building and down one floor, so Mark didn't have to listen to Annie's protests very long. Entering from the back of the room so that all the applicants were facing away from him, Mark asked,

"Applicant C4-21, why do you want to work here?"

"Uh, I, I think it's the next step. I want a career here and.."

"Okay, you're hired" He announced as the room turned to face him and all realized who he was.

"I am?" Kay Kay asked as she turned, finally recognizing Mark's voice.

"Of course, but your Lords and Ladies of Mars are going to kill you for taking off a year from school." Mark smiled.

"I get credit for it!" she squealed as she ran to him and they hugged.

"Come on, I'll show you where the office is and Annie can get your paperwork, the rest of you, well, you'll be interviewed and from what I've seen of your CV's, I have no doubt we will find a spot for you."

"How did you know?" Annie asked once they were back in the elevator going to Mark's office.

"You can't tell anyone. If you do and Kay Kay doesn't get it, I leave too."

"Okay" Annie finally promised realizing that Mark was dead serious.

"The signature line" Mark said as Annie looked it over.

"The fuzzy breaks that look like a copier error? Our copiers would never do that" Mark explained.

"So?"

"Dash dot dash, dash dot dash" Kay Kay smiled, "I knew you would get it, if you ever saw it. I heard from Missy you don't take interns though so"

"I don't. But this year, I'll make an exception" Mark smiled.

"So I start September first?"

"Second. The first is Labor Day. Is that right Annie?"

"Gosh, I have to find an apartment, and get back to Stanford to pick up my Jeep and"

"No, you'll stay with the lords and ladies of Mars. There is plenty of room and you can ride to work with Mindy and me. When is your flight back?"

"Tonight, I didn't expect to get"

"Cancel it. Beth has a jet from Digital Hermetics and her folks are visiting and will fly back in a couple days, she won't mind. You're going to drive back?"

"Yeah, I have a Jeep now, Wrangler rag top, 6 speed stick 4 by 4. You'll love it!"

"Hmmm, sounds like a road trip, think a few of us could come back with you?"

"Well I have some luggage and"

"That would fit on a plane, and we can rent another car. Road trip!"

"Road Trip!" Kay Kay exclaimed.

Kay Kay used her cell in Mark's office to call home and tell them the news, while Annie retrieved a new employee package.

Mark kept the girls on a conference call speed dial, so he was able to call Missy, Mindy and Beth at the push of a button.

"Hey guy! What's up, you're on the speaker in the Canyonaro. We're coming in for the launch. The folks are at home with the kids" Beth answered.

"Oh great, what's your ETA?"

"Oh, 20 minutes if the traffic holds up."

"Good deal, swing by my office, I just hired a new intern I want you to meet, she is going to stay with us, at least until we get her sorted out, but I told her you might be willing to give her a flight back to Cali with your folks."

"Uh, okay Mark but…"

It was hard to tell Missy and Mindy apart when they were yelling on the phone, but one of them practically screamed;

"Mark Watney you do not need to bring any more women out here! I can't believe you would spring this on…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! It's not like that, I think you will really like her, calm down. She goes to Beth's old school, majoring in Aeronautical Engineering, pretty as a princess and sharp as a tack, what's your name again dear?" He grinned as he switched the phone to speaker.

"Watney!" they heard just as Kay Kay began to speak.

"Kalina Akina, but my friends just call me 'Kay Kay.' Sometimes my best friends call me 'Princess.'

There was a long silence before Mindy spoke.

"Watney, we are going to make you sorry for that stunt, in ways you can't yet imagine. Kay Kay, you are always welcome, I… We're all so happy we…"

"Congratulations Kay Kay! If you are working with Mark we will teach you all the best ways to keep him in line" Beth shouted.

"I'm just… so happy. Kay Kay, there have been some things we couldn't talk about before, well we will tell you all that tonight. You're staying with us. We have plenty of room. We will be there soon, don't leave, don't move! Can't wait to see ya!" Missy added.

The women arrived just as Annie returned with Kay Kay's employment paperwork. They helped her fill it out and it was a joyous reunion for all. Everyone had stayed in touch with Kay Kay but this was the first time they had seen her since she started Stanford so there was a lot of catching up to do.

Later at Mission Control all wished Rick and Ares IV well over a private channel while the crew was going once again through the launch checklist. Missy would be one of the regular Cap Com's in rotation, Mindy and Mark would be filling in some too, but today, Mission Control and Mission Command would be fulfilling that role. For now, they were just talking to fill some time before launch.

"Hermes Actual, this is Cap Com One, copy."

"Copy Cap Com One, Hermes Actual, your voice is familiar, have we met?"

Although her transmission was voice only Missy could see his smile on the screen and knew Rick was in good spirits.

"As a matter of fact we have. This is Melissa Lewis. They made me Cap Com One so I could keep an eye on you. Godsped Colonel Martinez and the crew of Ares IV. Oh, the places you'll go! You have a few others here that want to say hi."

"Copy that Capcom. I stand on your shoulders. If I'm half the commander you are, I'll be good."

"Hermes Actual, Cap Com Two. You're going to be great, we all have complete faith in you" Mindy said.

"Cap Com Two, Hermes Actual. Thanks, and thanks for looking after Marissa and the kids, tell them I'll be home soon. Much sooner than the last time!"

It was Mark's turn next.

"Hermes Actual, Cap Com Three. Good luck, you'll be fine. And don't get a scratch on my ride, I'll know if you do. Hey, did you get visas from the Martian ambassador?"

"Cap Com Three, Hermes Actual. From what I understand you pretty well wrecked your ride already. No to the visas, I hope they will let us land." He laughed.

"Copy that Hermes, tell ya what, the ambassador is standing right here, maybe she will get your visa expedited if you ask really nice" Mark grinned as he handed his headset to Kay Kay. "You remember how to do it?"

"Yeah" Kay Kay said as she grinned. "Hermes actual, this is Kay Kay. You're going to be fine. I will process your visa's personally. Bring us back some big rocks and stuff, okay? Hey, I'm interning with Mark for the next year, I just found out today, so let's stay in touch, alright? Looks like you have a great crew again"

"Copy that Princess. You're interning with Mark? Remember, you can't believe anything he says. Get Commander Lewis and the crew to give you the real stories."

"Copy that Hermes, Kay Kay out, Beth, Dana, Alex, Anna and Chris want to say hi."

While the rest of the crew talked to Rick and wished him well, Annie finally had a chance to talk to Mark again.

"Yes. I can't believe you noticed that, the signature line" she smiled.

"No one looks for Morse code anymore. It's a dying art." 


End file.
